Out of Reach by
Patricia Lewin
pbk out March 05
(Piatkus)
at £6.99
This is the second novel by Patricia Lewin about Erin Baker, a fiesty CIA
agent who is an unarmed combat expert as well as being a covert overseas
operative in the Middle East. However, in this book she is grounded back in
Washington, due to her family responsibilities. Her younger sister Claire
was abducted when a small child and since being rescued many years later
she is psychologically damaged and unable to live outside an institution.
A rash of other child abductions are being investigated by the FBI and a
specialist agent, Alec Donovan, is desperately trying to find a small boy
Cody, when another girl vanishes. Erin was in the same park on the day she
disappeared and recognises an ice-cream vendor as the man who was around
when her sister was taken years before.
The two agents join forces to seek out Cody, which leads them to a German
diplomat whom they suspect of running several nefarious ventures, including
the sale of small children to perverts world-wide.
This becomes a chase sequence, with the pair bursting into the bad man's
mansion and shooting almost everyone in sight. It is a well-written story
with plenty of suspense and white-knuckle action, though the end is
something of a predictable let-down.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
