Author: Joseph Finder
Publisher: St Martin's Press
ISBN: 978-0-312-37908-7

Click Here To Purchase Vanished (Nick Heller)

If you never read a Joseph Finder mystery novel, this is a great one which to start. Finder has penned an array of novels including his New York Times bestseller Power Play that are not only uniformly riveting and well written but also different from one another in their choice of surroundings and characters.

His most recent tome, Vanished doesn't disappoint, and I can see that Finder has done his homework when it comes to the specifics of crime and enforcement in the Washington, D.C area where much of the novel's setting takes place. His protagonist, Nick Heller, who is an astute and high-powered investigator working for a private intelligence firm is somewhat akin to James Bond but without all the sexy girlfriends. Heller, with the aid of some sophisticated technology pertaining to surveillance technology, computer forensics, data recovery as well as his network of contacts, succeeds in uncovering secrets that important and powerful people would rather forget about.

The Prologue of Vanished sets the stage as to what will be unravelled over the next 384 pages as it recounts how on a rainy evening in Georgetown, Virginia, Nick's brother Roger and his wife Lauren are attacked, after dining at a Japanese restaurant. Lauren is knocked unconscious, while Roger vanishes into thin air. Before blacking out, Lauren remembers Roger uttering the words “Why Her?”

Both Lauren and Roger work for the same company, defense contractor Gifford Industries. Lauren is the administrative assistant to the CEO Leland Gifford and Roger, who is an attorney, works in the special-projects group of the corporate development division. We learn that Gifford Industries did considerable business with the Pentagon and Leland had quite a stable of very interesting and powerful contacts, some of whom wouldn't think twice about selling their own mother, if the price was right.

As the narrative unfolds, Nick Heller is assigned by his boss, Jay Stoddard to find out what happened to an entire planeload of cargo that has gone missing from a plane in a small regional airport south of L.A. Apparently, twenty thousand pounds of boxes and envelopes and packages that had arrived the previous day from Brussels disappeared. During his investigation, Heller locates the cargo and in the process discovers that the boxes contained nearly a billion dollars of cash. Heller seems to be quite bothered as to what he has uncovered and speculates what it may be all about. However, his boss wants him to keep his mouth tightly shut and close the case.

During the course of tracking down the missing cargo, Heller receives a phone call from his brother's fourteen-year old stepson, Gabe informing him that his mother was in the hospital, and that he doesn't know the whereabouts of his step-father. Heller rushes back to Washington to find out what this is all about and what actually happened to Lauren and Roger. And what he unveils is quite mind boggling involving black mail, extortion, graft, murder, corrupt government officials and even, to a limited extent his father Walter, who is presently in prison for some very serious crimes he had committed. In addition, Lauren is not exactly forthcoming in revealing to Heller some pertinent facts concerning her marital problems as well as some interesting information about Roger's business activities, which, as we will learn, play a vital role in finding out what happened to him.

The manner in which Heller puts the pieces together turns out to be a roller coaster high adventure that will have you on the edge of your seat. The story line is propelled with unexpected deception and some very brutal characters that will do anything to protect their own self-interests. Heller's tenacious search for answers concerning his brother's disappearance coupled with several wild skirmishes gives us one hell of a mystery novel that ends with a smashing and surprising climax. Finder certainly knows the value of careful plot construction, good writing and characterization and it is quite evident in Vanished.

Click Here To Purchase Vanished (Nick Heller)