MT Review: Taken [Hardcover]

I've finished "Taken" the 15th book in his Elvis Cole series by Robert Crais.

Product Description

When the police tell a wealthy industrialist that her missing son has faked his own kidnapping, she hires Elvis Cole and Joe Pike - and Cole soon determines that it was no fake. The boy and his secret girlfriend have been taken, and are now lost in the gray and changing world of the professional border kidnappers who prey not only on innocent victims but also on one another - buying, selling, and stealing victims like commodities. Fortunately, the kidnappers don't yet know who the boy is, but when Cole goes undercover to try to buy the two hostages back, he himself is taken and disappears. Now it is up to Pike to retrace Cole's steps, burning through the hard and murderous world of human traffickers . . . before it is too late.

Product Details
Reading level: Ages 18 and up
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult; First Edition edition (January 24, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399158278
ISBN-13: 978-0399158278

My Review:

A young Latina girl and her boyfriend are kidnapped by a band of bandits along a Mexican border.  These bandits prey on other criminals because they won't go to the police.  The main theme of this book is about bajadores who steal immigrants bound for the United States.  This kidnapping people organization is often ignored problem along the Mexican border.

Elvis Cole is hired by the mother of the kidnapped woman to rescue her daughter. Cole soon discovers what has happened to her and he enters into a risky and dangerous arrangement with a Korean organized criminal. It's a desperate move and Cole knows it.

When the plan backfires Cole is kidnapped by the bajadores Pike must come to his rescue.  He is backed up by fellow mercenary Jon Stone and he holds nothing back to get his friend back when he follows the trail the bajadores leave in their wake.  He finds out the FBI is also on the hunt for Cole and Pike is on the race to find him before they do and Cole's secret identity is blown and they make a mistake.

This book was very tense at times, fast paced, well researched and well written.  The bajadores are very cruel in their dealings with their victims.

I loved Jon Stone and hope to see him in future books!

5/5

Thanks Penguin Canada for sending me this book to review, greatly appreciated!

Other books in series:

1.  The Monkey's Raincoat
2.  Stalking the Angel
3.  Lullaby Town
4.  Freefall
5.  Voodoo River
6.  Sunset Express
7.  Indigo Slam
8.  L.A. Requim
9.  The Last Detective
10. The Forgotten Man
11. The Watchman
12. Chasing Darkness
13. The First Rule
14. The Sentry