The Locker

October 15, 2015
The safe return of a kidnapped child hinges on her aid-worker father, whose international ties might not be as altruistic as they first appear. When a note appears in Nancy Hardman's suburban London gym locker warning her that her 4-year-old, Beth, has been kidnapped, she thinks it's a sick joke. But when she goes home and finds Beth and the Polish nanny, Tiggi, gone, Nancy knows it's for real. Instructed not to call the police but to alert her husband, Michael, a charity worker in Africa, she calls Cruxys Solutions, the number Michael left for her in case of emergencies. The shadowy firm--they're like an insurance agency "only we sort out situations, we don't pay out claims"--sends Ruth Gonzalez, an ex-copper, and Andy Vaslik, an American kidnapping specialist with former ties to the Department of Homeland Security, to investigate. From the start, the pair senses something isn't right: Nancy is too calm, and her claim that Michael is in an unknown corner of Africa working for an unknown charity organization doesn't track. Magson (Close Quarters, 2015, etc.) does an able job setting up the interlocking world of international espionage and the global war on terror--everyone from Mossad to al-Qaida might be involved!--but Nancy is at best a caricature of a frantic mother who refuses to believe her husband is anything other than a saint, and Beth might as well be a doll for all the empathy she generates on the page. What's most compelling here is not what's lost but who's been sent in to find it: Gonzalez and Vaslik make an appealingly mismatched investigative unit.

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November 1, 2015
Nancy finds a note in her locker at the gym telling her that her daughter's been taken; to notify her husband, Michael; and not call the police. She has no idea where her husband is, but she remembers him telling her in case of an emergency to call a certain number and tell them Code Red. The number leads to Cruxys Solutions, a private security firm specializing in kidnappings in drug-war-torn countries and other security issues. Michael works for various charities in many of these countries as well as in the Middle East. Nancy texts her husband, as instructed, then calls Cruxys. The action speeds up as the security officers find several irregularities in Nancy's story and dig deeper. Magson takes the suburban thriller overseas and gives it a good twist. Readers who enjoy Harlan Coben and Joseph Finder will happily get lost in the nightmare presented here.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)