Buried Secrets Large Print Edition By Joseph Finder Center Point (2011) ISBN: 978-1611731323 Genre: Thriller

Reviewed by Israel Drazin - June 28, 2011

This is Joseph Finder’s second well-written, exciting, clever, and frequently humorous Nick Heller novel. Finder is the author of ten other books, all fiction, except for one. Two novels were award winners and one was made into a movie. Nick Heller is an ex-US Army Special Forces operative and former intelligence operative, who was recognized as one of the most proficient soldiers, but was fired by his general when he disagreed with him. Beside a wealth of skills, Heller has high-placed friends in the US, Russia, and other governments that he developed during his military career and whom he helped and who owe him favors, assets he can and does use in his current work as a private eye helping people in need. Heller has two somewhat quirky but highly competent women who work in his office and an ex-girl friend who is an FBI officer who is able to give him information.

Alexa, the seventeen-year-old daughter of a flaky billionaire who lives with his fourth wife, was drinking in a bar with her girl friend. The two are approached by a handsome seemingly Spanish man. The girl friend leaves and the man drugs Alexa, takes her out of the bar, and hands her to another man. She is buried in a coffin ten feet underground, but is kept alive by a pipe that feeds in air. Alexa is claustrophobic and suffers greatly. The kidnapper demands that her father give him the Mercury file. Although he loves his daughter, her father doesn’t want to release the file. He had been acting strangely before the kidnapping, including installing a large security system in his house and hiring a guard to protect him. He requests Heller to find and save his daughter. Heller soon finds out that everyone is lying to him, things are not what they seem, and the senior FBI official has taken unlawful actions against him. He needs to discover what is going on, who is the kidnapper or kidnappers, and what is in the Mercury file. The novel moves like a race car, starting somewhat leisurely, but soon sprinting at breakneck, spectator entrancing, and award-wining speed.

• Detour, by James Siegel.
  If your wife and daughter were kidnaped, what would you do to get them back? In the case of Paul Breidbart, almost anything, including becoming a drug mule for a Columbian drug cartel. But when he is unable to deliver the drugs, Paul must resort to even more dangerous endeavors to save his family.
  
  
• First Family, by David Baldacci.
  When the President's niece is kidnapped, former Secret Service agents turned Private Investigators, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, are called upon by the First Lady to save the child, and to help capture the kidnapper.