Stealing People

by Robert Wilson

Overview

Around the world, the children of the rich are disappearing . . . A chilling thriller starring kidnapping expert Charles Boxer, “a great character” (Kirkus Reviews).

Kidnapping expert Charles Boxer is contemplating retirement. He’s found a measure of contentment, even as a mystery from his own past gnaws at his sense of justice. Meanwhile, his ex-wife, Mercy, balances a complicated personal life with an even more precarious professional one in the woefully under-resourced metropolitan police department. But both are suddenly pulled back into action when six children of ultrawealthy families vanish—families from India, China, Russia, Australia, Germany, and the United States—taken by a ruthlessly efficient organization with a single astonishing demand.
Trapped, off-balance, and with little left to lose, they plunge into a cauldron of warring intelligence agencies, morally destitute billionaires, and human traffickers, coming finally to a fateful reckoning that will forever change them—in this smart, suspenseful thriller by a Gold Dagger and Gumshoe Award–winning author.

“A great character whose emotional trials are exciting to follow.”—Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609453138
Publisher:	Europa Editions, Incorporated
Publication date:	06/07/2016
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Robert Wilson has lived and worked around the world and now divides his time between the UK and Portugal. He's written many acclaimed crime novels including the CWA Gold Dagger Award-winning A Small Death in Lisbon and the Falcon series, which was recently adapted for television. His first novel featuring Charlie Boxer, Captital Punishment, was shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award.

Editorial Reviews

04/18/2016
The opening of Wilson’s intelligent if overly ambitious third thriller starring kidnapping consultant Charlie Boxer (after 2015’s You Will Never Find Me) chillingly depicts several well-staged, perfectly executed kidnappings in the course of about 32 hours in London. The six victims are all children and young adults from exceptionally wealthy families with close ties to the governments of their countries of origin (India, China, Russia, Australia, Germany, and the U.S.). The London police are all over the high-profile case; Boxer gets involved when a young woman hires him to find her missing father, who “supplies security to the U.S. military.” Meanwhile, the minor crook boyfriend of Boxer’s ex-wife, Det. Insp. Mercy Danquah, disappears. Wilson raises disturbing questions about growing economic inequality and the hidden, privatized world of mercenaries and outsourced security. Readers will struggle, however, to keep track of the book’s many plot lines, characters, and their motives. Agent: Anthony Sheil, Aitken Alexander Associates (U.K.). (June)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Stealing People

"Wilson has created a great character [protagonist- Charlie Boxer] whose emotional trials are exciting to follow. This series looks like it will have legs if the hero can stand any more emotional pummeling.”—Kirkus Reviews

“When the chips are down, though (and they always are, in Boxer’s world), the protagonist’s professional instincts kick in. What remains of the day is saved—though enough intriguing questions remain unanswered for at least one more sequel.”—The Wall Street Journal


Praise for Robert Wilson

“Wilson writes with elegant vigor.”—The Wall Street Journal
 
“One of the more sophisticated writers in his field.”—Kirkus Reviews
 
“Splendid ... Wilson has a talent for digging beneath the skin to explore psychological and emotional nuances.”—New York Daily News
 
“Wilson demonstrates, as Graham Greene did long ago, that thrillers are the liveliest most gripping, most through-provoking literary enterprises going today.”—LA Times
 
“Few writers - in any genre - can match Wilson’s depth of character and plot or his evocation of place.”—The Boston Globe

From the Publisher

2016-03-17
The third in a series featuring British kidnap consultant Charlie Boxer (You Will Never Find Me, 2015, etc.). Boxer, of the charitable foundation LOST, gets a request from Siobhan Jensen to find her billionaire father, Conrad, who's been missing for three days. Meanwhile, within little over a day, a half-dozen children of billionaires are snatched off the street, including an 8-year-old girl. The kidnappers want 25 million euros per captive for "expenses," not for ransom, but they don't seem to be terrorists. They make impossible demands and threaten to kill their hostages one by one. Boxer's ex-wife, DI Mercy Danquah, leads the police investigation as part of London's Kidnap and Special Investigations Unit. Meanwhile, Mercy's lover, Marcus Alleyne, is also kidnapped. It's a tangled web, with Jensen, Alleyne, and the missing children all caught in the strands. The "sexually voracious" Siobhan sleeps with Boxer's 19-year-old daughter, Amy, and Boxer's own lover, Isabel, is pregnant. Boxer is a complex and sympathetic hero who can cry over a devastating personal loss and still deal effectively with nasty and dangerous people. "You're a good man who doesn't have a problem with killing bad guys," he's accurately told. This well-honed skill seems like an odd trait for the head of a charitable foundation, but at least he doesn't seem to take pleasure in it. He's loyal, selfless, and emotional, but he has no hesitation about offing people who deserve it. Near the end, a spectacular twist gains worldwide attention and will make readers exclaim "Wow!" Then, after the denouement, the ending dawdles for a few pages. Wilson has created a great character whose emotional trials are exciting to follow. This series looks like it will have legs if the hero can stand any more emotional pummeling.

Kirkus Reviews