White Hot Silence

At the start of this intricate tale of international financial skullduggery from Porter (Firefly), Anastasia Hisami, who’s in Italy working with the Aysel Hisami Therapy Foundation, manages to leave a couple of cell phone messages for her husband, financier Denis Hisami, who’s in Palo Alto, Calif., before she’s kidnapped by two Italian gangsters. Anastasia later wakes up in a storage container on a cargo ship alongside two dead men. Before her abduction, she was also able to call her former British lover and ex-MI6 agent, Paul Samson, who now owns a restaurant in London and works as a private investigator. Denis hires Paul to find his wife, a task the investigator leaps at because he’s still in love with Anastasia. Porter handles every aspect of the complicated plot, including the labyrinthine financial and political developments and the romantic triangle involving Anastasia, Denis, and Paul, with keen intelligence and compassion. Thriller readers looking for plenty of action, excellent writing, and credible, convincing characters will be rewarded. [em]Agent: Emma Parry, Janklow & Nesbit. (Sept.) [/em]