Book excerpt: A father follows his runaway daughter into a world of crime and espionage in this thriller by “one of the more sophisticated writers in his field” (Kirkus Reviews). Amy Boxer, the precocious, frustrated daughter of kidnap consultant Charles Boxer and DI Mercy Danquah, has decided on drastic action: She’s leaving home. But Amy can’t just walk out. First she goads her parents with a challenge: YOU WILL NEVER FIND ME. Amy’s destination: Madrid. Here, in the strobe lights of bars and crowded dance clubs, she’s anonymous and untraceable. Except to a volatile, unpredictable leader in the city’s drug trade, the man known only as El Osito. Boxer will use his very specific set of skills to retrace Amy’s quickly vanishing steps. Meanwhile, Detective Inspector Danquah has her own missing person case in London: the young son of a retired Russian secret service agent who’s trying to learn who poisoned his colleague, Alexander Tereshchenko. As the detective begins her search, a body is found in Madrid. And Amy’s father may be the next target . . . The Gold Dagger Award–winning author of A Small Death in Lisbon “demonstrates, as Graham Greene did long ago, that thrillers are the liveliest, most gripping, most thought-provoking literary enterprises going today” (Los Angeles Times Book Review). “Few writers—in any genre—can match Wilson’s depth of character and plot or his evocation of place.” —The Boston Globe