Break every rule

A former Army Ranger scrambles to locate his missing wife and daughter in this forgettable standalone from Freeman (the Jonathan Stride series). Tommy Miller has been living under an alias to obscure his complicated past as a soldier and member of the Outsiders, an organization of high-ranking American officials prepared to take over the country should the government collapse. He fears his past may have come back to haunt him when his wife, Teresa, and infant daughter, Rosalita, are abducted from their home in Florida. The case is assigned to Lindy Jax, a Black police detective derided by her colleagues as a diversity hire, who's determined to prove herself by finding the kidnappers. What neither Tommy nor Lindy know is that Teresa has a secret past of her own, in which she was tangled up in the murder of a British Royal involved in sex trafficking. Freeman consistently prioritizes action over character, resulting in a cardboard redux of Taken-style suspense thrillers. It's a letdown." Agent: Deborah Schneider, Gelfman Schneider. (Sept.)

When a woman with a troubled history goes missing with her infant daughter, two searchers with very different agendas go looking for her. The first of them, Tommy Miller, has been waiting for Venezuelan enforcer Mauricio Perez to catch up with him because he wrongly blames Tommy for the murder of his wife, Almu Perez. So although it makes perfect sense that Perez would have in turn kidnapped Tommy's wife, Teresa, and their daughter, Rosalita, Tommy wonders why Teresa would've packed an emergency bag in preparation for a danger Tommy never told her about. Like Perez, Tommy's not one to let bygones be bygones, and his military training and connections make him just as likely an avenger as Perez--and much likelier than Lindy Jax, the Alachua County Sheriff's Office detective Tommy reports the disappearance to. It doesn't take long for Lindy, who's driven by memories of her own brother's unsolved disappearance when he was 6 and she was 11, to figure out that Tommy's hiding several important details, like Teresa's past connection to billionaire investor Martin Fell, her real name, and the identity of Rosalita's biological father. Basing Teresa's backstory largely on sordid real-life headlines about Jeffrey Epstein and his stable of young women and high-end companion abusers, Freeman ups the stakes by setting Tommy and Lindy against each other--each of them smart, capable, well provisioned, and willing to break every rule--and letting the chips fall where they may. Just in case a few readers find the competition between Tommy and Lindy too predictable, the author reveals a third interested party with a still different agenda. Reliable thrills, bone-crunching action scenes, and satisfying revelations of corruption in high places. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.