New York Times bestselling author of the Spenser series of crime thrillers - Book 2 in the series -

Appie Knoll is the kind of suburb where kids grow up right. But something is wrong. Fourteen-year-old Kevin Bartlett disappears. Everyone thinks he's run away -- until the comic strip ransom note arrives. It doesn't take Spenser long to get the picture -- an affluent family seething with rage, a desperate boy making strange friends.friends like Vic Harroway, body builder. Mr. Muscle is Spenser's only lead and he isn't talking.except with his fists. But when push comes to shove, when a boy's life is on the line, Spenser can speak that language too.

A brillant, and cynical, comic tragedy or tragic comedy of manners. Long may Parker wave. -- Los Angeles Times