From the CWA GOLD DAGGER AWARD-winning author of CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.
YOU WILL NEVER FIND ME. When Charlie Boxer reads this note from his daughter in her empty room, the words only reinforce what he already knows: he's always got his priorities wrong. His ex-wife, DCI Mercy Danquah, and their daughter, Amy, have learned to live without him.
Boxer's work in high stakes kidnap and recovery has taken him to places from which no man returns unscathed. And Amy has been around enough police business to plan the perfect disappearing act. But what Amy doesn't realise - and Boxer knows only too well - is how quickly a life can fall apart when living under the radar.
Charlie follows Amy's tracks from London to Madrid - but will the trail last long enough for him to face up to the true meaning of the sins of the fathers?
Robert Wilson has written thirteen novels including the Bruce Medway noir series set in West Africa and two Lisbon books with WW2 settings the first of which, A Small Death in Lisbon, won the CWA Gold Dagger in 1999 and the International Deutsche Krimi prize in 2003. He has written four psychological crime novels set in Seville, with his Spanish detective, Javier Falcón. Two of these books (The Blind Man of Seville and The Silent and the Damned) were filmed and broadcast on Sky Atlantic as ‘Falcón’ in 2012. A film of the fourth Falcón book was released in Spain in 2014 under the title La Ignorancia de la Sangre. Capital Punishment, the first novel in his latest series of pure thrillers set in London and featuring kidnap consultant, Charles Boxer, was published in 2013 and was nominated for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. This was followed by You Will Never Find Me in 2014. The third book in the series, Stealing People, will be published in 2015. Robert Wilson loves to cook food from all over the world but especially Spanish, Portuguese, Indian and Thai. He also loves to walk with dogs…and people, too.
Due esperti di rapimenti devono affrontare un caso di persona smarrita che li coinvolge personalmente parecchio da vicino: la figlia, ormai tecnicamente maggiorenne, decide di darsi alla macchia, e nel messaggio che lascia alla madre conclude con la frase del titolo, Non mi troverete mai, sia avvertimento che sfida.
I due esperti sono il padre e la madre della fuggitiva e sono divorziati da anni. La figlia potrebbe essere sparita per ricompensarli con la stessa moneta: l’assenza dei due genitori sempre troppo impegnati col proprio lavoro, i casi da risolvere, la tensione, le missioni all’estero, il lavoro senza orario spinge la ragazza a sparire, a ripagarli (e vendicarsi) con la stessa moneta, la sua assenza. Per mettere in pratica la sua minaccia, ripulisce casa da qualsiasi segno e traccia della sua presenza, impronte digitali, capelli, ogni possibile mezzo per risalire al DNA, come ha imparato dal lavoro di mamma e papà.
I due genitori si ritrovano di nuovo uniti nell’affrontare questo trauma che scatena ogni possibile senso di colpa, angoscia, smuove ogni lato oscuro e fragile delle loro personalità. Charles, il padre, vola in Spagna: la polizia di Madrid ha trovato in un sacco gettato in riva al fiume le parti di un cadavere femminile e un passaporto inglese intestato a Amy Boxer, la figlia scomparsa. Il mondo crolla.
E qui compare un personaggio indimenticabile, lo spacciatore colombiano soprannominato Orsacchiotto, un energumeno che non sa neppure dove abiti l’innocenza, è cresciuto nel sangue, e solo sangue sa replicare.
Ma anche Charles, il padre di Amy, ha un lato oscuro, molto oscuro…
Un’altra crime novel di quelle che non mollano e non si mollano, con colpi di scena e suspense a volontà. Ideale sotto l’ombrellone. Ma anche sotto qualsiasi ombra, su poltrone e sedie, oltre che sdraio e lettini, e treni aerei metro…
You Will Never Find Me – Charles Boxer # 2 – by Robert Wilson is a 2015 Europa publication. I was provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This is the first book I have read by this author so I had no idea what to expect when I got started on this one. But, the more I read, the more I liked the story and the author's style.
When bored sixteen year old Amy Boxer leaves her mother, Mercy, a note explaining she is running away from home she proudly proclaims: “You will never find me”.
Mercy and Charles are divorced, she is from Africa, and he is from London, but the bond they share because of Amy draws them back together as they search frantically for their daughter. Mercy is a cop and Charles is a kidnap specialist, so finding people is something Charles is fairly good at. So, while he combs through Madrid, the last place Amy was seen, Mercy takes on a child abduction case.
This is a riveting and fast paced thriller preying on every parent's worst nightmare. Blending that in with the drug trade and a the Russian Secret Service made the usual runaway and abduction trope very interesting and edgy indeed. The author deftly intertwines the personal lives of Charles and Mercy into the story as each cope with the situation in their own way and as is the case so often in this type of situation, long held secrets rise to the surface adding yet another tense element to the story.
While this is a “Charles Boxer” mystery, it was Mercy I found to be the most compelling and curious character in the book. She is driven by her career, is still in love with Charles and makes no secret of the fact she would like another chance with him, although he is now involved with someone else. She is also in that special tumultuous place many mothers find themselves in when their daughters hit their teen years and morph into someone they don't even recognize. Amy is the typical teen in many ways, filled with disdain for no good reason, secretive and haughty, thinking she knows more than her parents. But, when she runs away from home, something opens in Mercy causing her to behave in an uncharacteristic way, I would never have imagined from a cop. But, when she is on the job, she is focused, in her element, sharp and alert, excelling here in ways she does not in her personal life.
Charles also goes off script, tossing the proverbial book out the window, in order to find and save his daughter. Both he and Amy will find themselves pawns in a deadly scheme and this is where things got so tense I couldn't book the book down.
I do believe I will be looking for more of the the Charles Boxer mysteries in the future. This story is a unique thriller, well plotted and paced, with interesting and compelling characters. Overall this one gets 4 stars
Review: YOU WILL NEVER FIND ME by Robert Wilson (CHARLES BOXER #2)
An exceptional thriller, not a fast read, but very much worth the reader's attention, YOU WILL NEVER FIND ME is at heart the story of a rebellious adolescent struggling against parental absence on one hand (due to danger, violence, and global travel) and a stern disciplinary parent (raised by a Ghanaian police chief father), so in one sense it is a coming-of-age tale. And oh, what this adolescent undergoes in process! But more, the novel deeply characterizes its protagonists, as well as secondary characters. It examines contemporary global balance, politics, and socio economy, especially examining Britain, Spain, and a close observation of the great Russian bear. YOU WILL NEVER FIND ME is deeply absorbing. I'm eager to read the first in the series, and the author's other novels.
His best book since “The Blind Man from Seville”. Usually sequels are not as good as the first book in a series, but in this case it is. The story involves three separate incidents that affect Mercy and Charles and they take place around the time, in London, that a former Russian spy was murdered with Plutonium. The stories are packed with action and moves pretty fast. The only problem is that you need a scorecard to keep track of the characters. There are some sections of the book that are somewhat melodramatic but the overall story keeps you turning the pages.
…o primeiro livro que leio do autor, e uma história já com alguns anos que agora me chegou às mãos. O livro desenrola-se em 2 frentes, e nunca se torna aborrecido. Terei que começar ler não só os restantes da série #Boxer, como os outros do autor 👍🏻 definitivamente agradavelmente surpreendida!
Amy Boxer has decided to run away from home. She’s tired of being a teenager living under her divorced parents’ rules and feels she must make a go of it on her own. However, it requires meticulous planning and execution on her part since both of her parents work in law enforcement. But they’re not just any old cops. They work specifically with kidnappings.
Mercy Danquah and Charlie Boxer are shocked to discover that not only has their daughter run away, but she has been so successful in erasing any clues as to her whereabouts or even her existence that they realize this has been in the works for quite some time. Just when they think they’ve picked up her trail, they receive terrifying news that she may have been involved with a drug trafficker in Madrid that has a nasty reputation with women. Only then do they truly understand that when Amy wrote, “You will never find me” in her goodbye letter, those words may be more prophetic than any of them thought.
To distract herself from the disappearance of her daughter, Mercy throws herself into her work and finds herself heading up the investigation of the kidnapping of a young Russian boy. Charlie, however, is determined to find out what happened to Amy and exact revenge on those who may have done her harm. Will they find out what really happened to Amy? Will Mercy be able to find the kidnapped boy?
This was a gripping novel right from the start. I was intrigued when I read the description of the book with the dual story line and I wasn’t disappointed since the novel begins with Amy running away. The twists and turns in the story were really great and totally caught me by surprise. Sex, drugs, and violence see their fare share in the book, but I appreciated that while author highlighted the depravity it wasn’t terribly graphic. He didn’t get too specific with all the sordid details. I especially liked that the novel ties everything up in the end. I wasn’t left hanging wondering what was going on.
This was an exciting read full of suspense and intrigue. It’s a little heavy on the sex and violence, but the storyline itself is fantastic. Amy’s story is especially brilliant in my opinion and I loved that I was guessing until the very end. If you’re looking for an exciting and entertaining thriller, this is definitely the book for you.
(I received a copy of the book for a fair and honest review. All of the above opinions are entirely my own.)
An interesting story about people finding their way in the world. Two parents (both in law enforcement) whose personal lives are in transition--with other people or alone. Their daughter, who became a hormonal pot of misery as a teenager, decides she's going to utilize everything her parents taught her and disappear. The father goes looking for the daughter, with disastrous results. There's another subplot about a young boy who is kidnapped, and the mother is part of the team trying to bring him home safely. A bit of international/spy intrigue in this storyline as well. The storyline kept me guessing, and there were a couple of great plot twists I didn't see coming. I didn't realize that the mother was black (she was from Ghana, if I remember right), or that the daughter was as well, until many chapters in. I could have been dense about some descriptions dropped, but didn't notice until it was key to the description/plotline at that moment. Felt kind of dumb about it! There was a small piece at the end, highlighting some event on the TV, that really felt disconnected from the story for me. I liked the epilogue for the most part, as you got to see their lives a couple months later, but I didn't get the reason for the focus of the very very end. Other than that, a great read! I left it with a friend, to share the news and increase readership.
You Will Never Find Me by Robert Wilson Europa Editions/2015
Kidnap specialists Mercy and Charles Boxer have a 17 year old daughter, Amy. Amy is an incredibly smart young woman - however when she goes missing on purpose - her desperate parents can't find her. It turns out that Amy has learned an awful lot about how her parents search for the kidnapped or missing - and is using the information to remain hidden. With every step that Mercy and Charles take to find their daughter, they quickly learn that Amy had covered all the bases. When it turns out that the Boxers can't seem to find their daughter; it now appears Amy may, in fact, be dead. Will they ever find Amy? And, more importantly, will she still be alive? Robert Wilson's book "You Will Never Find Me" is a fast paced, thrill of a mystery! I was hooked from the very first page - and you will be too! I received this Ebook for free to review. I am a member of Goodreads, LibraryThing, NetGalley and maintain a book blog at dbettenson.wordpress.com.
This contemporary crime thriller isn't the sort of book I would usually read, and I have very little knowledge or experience of the lives led by these characters. However the author did a good job of describing their criminal world and the dysfunctional lives of Teenage Amy and her estranged parents. Amy seems too grown up for her age, as she plots and executes running away to Madrid. Her father sets out to find her...conveniently he's an ex cop specialist, and her mother (detective) solves an unrelated kidnap case. There is one big plot twist but generally I found the novel to be overly long and a bit one dimensional which caused the pace to dip in the middle. A solid 3.5 stars, and worth struggling to the end. This book was free with Goodread Giveaways.
Non mi è piaciuto. Avrebbe potuto piacermi molto di più se non fosse stato infarcito di un'altra storia che correva parallela alla prima del ragazzino russo rapito. Ecco quei russi lì non c'entravano davvero NIENTE con tutto il resto della storia. E anche la quarta di copertina che inneggiava a questo "inconfessabile segreto del padre".......così tanto inconfessabile non mi sembrava! Davvero delusa. L'ho finito solo perchè odio lasciare i libri a metà.
Great book. Believable characters vividly portrayed. An unexpected turn or two but not contrived. Other books it feels artificial-the author is just jerking me around. Here it is an integral part of the story totally natural. Want to read any subsequent books.
I received this book in the mail once I started reading it grabbed me and i couldn't put it down this book was amazing right from the start I loved it... I would recommend this book. Thank you for this exciting read
Have previously enjoyed Wilson's books but this one just left me cold. Quite unbelievable/clunky dialogue and scenarios. Seemed to have been dashed off to fulfil a publishing commitment.
Lê-se bem mas não é leitura que queira repetir. É demasiado introspectivo e tem pouca ação para uma história que prometia mais, afinal é um pai a vingar a morte da filha e o rapto de uma criança, tudo simultâneo. As páginas e páginas de lamento de uma mãe que ao mesmo tempo se enfia a correr na cama de um desconhecido; percebi imediatamente que a morte da "filha" não a nomeava uma única vez; afinal a investigação em Espanha foram duas noites de copos e está resolvido; o traficante com coração de ouro que lhes facilita o trabalho... livro cheio de palha quase literalmente. Compreendo e defendo a construção de personagens, mas o autor repete-se tanto que metade do livro é chover no molhado. Não concordo com o final, foi idiota e mal escrito. Ou saiam os três juntos em glória, ou que escrevesse o cliché deste género. Como recentemente li bem pior, três estrelas.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This novel is as exciting as its prequel, “Capital Punishment.” It was fun to again cavort around the grimy underworld of kidnapping with Wilson’s family of characters, especially the lead, Charlie Boxer. His characters and their relationships to another are complicated….just like real life. Like CP, there we lots of twists and turns, the biggest of which I flushed out early in the book. Fun read…I’ll recommend it to our book club. Unfortunately, unlike CP, this novel does not beg the obvious sequel. Darn
A cleverly crafted thriller where Charlie Boxers daughter, Amy lays down the gauntlet when she eradicates herself and disappears, leaving a false trail that leads to a dismembered female - very similar to herself - leaving Boxer and DCI Mercy Danquah devastated - until their DNA reveals no match to the female victim and another bomb is dropped, Boxer is not Amy's biological father. A race against time to find Amy. Mercy is also keeping busy trying to find a kidnapped boy and teams rally to help Boxer and Mercy solve both riddles.
Amy Boxer goes missing and her parents, Charles Boxer and Mercy Danquah, want to find her. Charles uses his special skillset as a kidnap consultant to retrace her steps while Detective Inspector Danquah works on a case of her own and worries.
Story is well-written and takes a few different turns.
Eh…it was interesting, and maybe I’d have liked it better if I read the first one, but the majority of the characters were so unlikeable it definitely hurt the book. There was also a lot going on, but at the same time it was pretty predictable in most areas, so that was another negative. I’d give the series another try, but I’m not going to actively seek it out.
Very good thriller, kept me going late into the night, something that is harder and harder to do as I get older--I tend to fall asleep after 10 or 15 minutes of reading. :-) Charles Boxer is a complicated man and the plot has enough twists to keep it going to the end.
Disappointing. The author of so many clever and fascinating books seems to me to have lost his moxie. The plot and characters are both over the top- a reach to create a depressing and tiring story. The schmaltzy ending was particularly weak and not up to his standards.