The Wrong Hostage

In Lowell's head-spinning story a teenaged boy is being held hostage by a Mexican drug lord to force his presumed father to return millions of dollars he stole in an investment scheme. The moral here is not to steal from Mexican drug lords. Fortunately for the kid, his mother is smart enough to enlist the aid of his REAL father to try to pull off a rescue that would make James Bond (and Batman) jealous. Whisky-voiced Maria Tucci proves you don't have to be a man to pull off an espionage thriller. She is a strong performer who ramps up the tension making a strong novel even stronger. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

April 17, 2006
A mother's worst nightmare of an endangered child is just one breathless element of Lowell's latest romantic thriller (after Always Time to Die
). Newly divorced California judge Grace Silva discovers her billionaire ex-husband, Ted Franklin, is missing, after she's summoned to the exclusive Mexican prep school where her 15-year-old computer whiz son, Lane, is being held hostage. Ted has crossed Hector Rivas Osuna, the ruthless kingpin of the most violent crime family in Tijuana, and Grace learns that Lane will be killed if she doesn't turn over the millions Ted has stolen from Osuna. She seeks the help of Joe Faroe, an ex who predated Ted and who may be Lane's biological father; Joe works for an elite private investigation firm. Lowell's convincing depiction of the Mexican drug trade illuminates the dangerous intersection of her characters' personal lives with international politics and organized crime. Events unfold in a maze of talk and double-talk, but the payoff is solid as the family reunites, finding that both love and the price of freedom are nonnegotiable.