The Crime Writers’ Association

Goldsboro Books

Gold Dagger 2015

Shortlisted


Sam Hawken

Missing

Published by: Profile Books/Serpent's Tail

Jack Searle is an American widower, raising his two stepdaughters Lidia and Marina alone in the border town of Laredo. Jack often takes the girls to visit their Mexican family over the border in Nuevo Laredo. Marina, the elder sister, persuades him to let her go there without him one night, to attend a concert with her cousin Patricia. Jack wants to say no – Nuevo Laredo is a very dangerous city – but eventually he agrees. The girls head out to the concert, but they never come back. A hunt for them begins, but this is Nuevo Laredo, and girls go missing all the time here. Good cop Gonzalo Soler leads the investigation, but soon the whole police force is suspended due to endemic corruption. The army take over the city, and finding the missing girls is not their priority. To find the girls, Jack and Gonzalo must take the law into their own hands. As their efforts become more and more dangerous, they uncover truths about Nuevo Laredo that neither one of them ever wanted to

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