Crais has never written a book with the power and intensity of Taken. When Nita Morales hires Elvis Cole to find her missing adult daughter, she isn’t afraid, even though she’s gotten a phone call asking for ransom. She knows it’s a fake, that her daughter is off with the guy Nita will call only “that boy,” and that they need money: “Even smart girls do stupid things when they think a boy loves them.” But she is wrong. The girl and her boyfriend have been taken by bajadores - bandits who prey on other bandits, border professionals who prey not only on innocent victims, but on one another. They steal drugs, guns, and people — buying and selling victims like commodities, and killing the ones they can’t get a price for.
