336 pp. Author's first novel. "FBI Special Agent Mike Yeager is in trouble. His most recent case---a child kidnapping, his usual---ended tragically, and the FBI has suspended him. Worse, Mike can’t seem to forgive himself. He’s run away from everything he knows in Philadelphia to the mountains of Nevada in an attempt to forget. Now in Nevada, he’s stumbled into the world of a killer: in the small town of San Cristobal, one child was killed accidentally---or so it seems---a few weeks before Mike’s arrival. The day after he shows up, an adult is murdered, and soon another child disappears. Mike doesn’t want to get involved, but he can’t help himself, first because as a stranger in town he’s got to prove to the local law enforcement that he’s not the killer, and second, because he’s in the perfect place to solve the case and redeem himself in the eye of the FBI. Not to mention that at least one more child’s life is at stake. Thomas Lakeman is one of those rare talents who has composed a first novel that doesn’t read like a debut at all, but instead is written with the precision and tightly drawn suspense of one of the genre’s masters."
