ARC Review: Good As Gone by Douglas Corleone

Good As Gone

Author: Douglas Corleone

Publication: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (August 20, 2013)

Description: Former U.S. Marshal Simon Fisk now works as a private contractor, tracking down and recovering children who were kidnapped by their own estranged parents. He only has one rule: he won’t touch stranger abduction cases. He’s still haunted by the disappearance of his own daughter years ago when she was just a child, still unsolved, and stranger kidnappings hit too close to home.

Until, that is, six-year-old Lindsay Sorkin disappears from her parents’ hotel room in Paris, and the French police deliver Simon an ultimatum: he can spend years in a French jail for his actions during a past case, or he can work with them now to find Lindsay Sorkin. So, Simon sets out in pursuit of the missing child and the truth behind her disappearance. But Lindsay’s captors did not leave an easy trail, and following it will take Simon across the continent, through the ritziest nightclubs and the seediest back alleys, into a terrifying world of international intrigue and dark corners of his past he’d rather never face again.

With lightning-fast pacing and a twist behind every turn, Douglas Corleone's Good as Gone is a gripping race against the clock for a young girl with her life on the line and a man who has nothing left to lose.

My Thoughts: Simon Fisk has lived through every parent's worst nightmare. His six-year-old daughter was abducted and has never been found. His wife committed suicide but Simon,. former US Marshal, now locates children taken by non-custodial parents and brings them home. He is stopped by the police in Paris and forced to help them locate six-year-old Lindsey Sorkin. The French police don't want the scandal of losing another foreign child. Simon doesn't care about the police but he does care about the little girl.

Simon begins a chase that will take him from Paris to Germany, Poland, the Ukraine, Belarus and Russia as he tries to track down the missing child. Along the way he gets involved with the drug culture, with human trafficking, with child pornography, and with the devastation caused by the Chernobyl. He deals with corrupt police and dirty lawyers. But he also find help from old friends and a possible new love interest. 

The story was very fast-paced and filled with danger and violence. Fisk is a driven hero who is still deeply damaged by his own childhood when his father took him away from his mother and sister and from the horrible loss of his own child. 

Fans of fast-paced thrillers will enjoy this story and be looking for more about Simon Fisk.

Favorite Quote:

"Have you ever thought that maybe your daughter could still be alive?"

I felt my lower lip tremble.

"I lost hope that she was alive long ago, and I'd never want that hope back. Not in a million years. Not for one second. But I will forever be looking. In every shop, every café, every open home window in every city of town in every country on every continent. I can't help myself. I want to know what happened to her and why. And I want to know who took her."

I got this eARC through Minotaur Books' eGalley program. You can buy your copy here.