title: The Wrong Hostage: A Novel
author:  Elizabeth Lowell 
description: A mother's worst nightmare of an endangered child is just one breathless element of Lowell's latest romantic thriller (after <i>Always Time to Die</i>). Newly divorced California judge Grace Silva discovers her billionaire ex-husband, Ted Franklin, is missing, after she's summoned to the exclusive Mexican prep school where her 15-year-old computer whiz son, Lane, is being held hostage. Ted has crossed Hector Rivas Osuna, the ruthless kingpin of the most violent crime family in Tijuana, and Grace learns that Lane will be killed if she doesn't turn over the millions Ted has stolen from Osuna. She seeks the help of Joe Faroe, an ex who predated Ted and who may be Lane's biological father; Joe works for an elite private investigation firm. Lowell's convincing depiction of the Mexican drug trade illuminates the dangerous intersection of her characters' personal lives with international politics and organized crime. Events unfold in a maze of talk and double-talk, but the payoff is solid as the family reunites, finding that both love and the price of freedom are nonnegotiable. <i>(June)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  Unfinished Business
  
  
  
  
  
  Barbara Seranella  
  2001
  
  
  
  
  
  _For Ron, of course_
  
  
  
  
  
  —
  
  
  Stockholm syndrome n. The tendency of a
  
  
  hostage,  
  under certain circumstances, to try
  
  
  to cooperate and  
  occasionally even to aid his
  
  
  captors. [Referring to the  
  cooperative
  
  
  behavior of hostages held in a bank  
  robbery
  
  
  in Stockholm (1973).J  
  —Reader's Digest
  
  
  Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary
  
  
  
  
  
  **Chapter 1**
  
  
  
  
  
  **FRIDAY**
  
  
  **M** unch scooted down in the
  
  
  front seat of the big, silver limousine and fought back a yawn. She
  
  
  was tempted to climb in the back and see if there was anything good
  
  
  on TV. Three things stopped her: one was the obvious oxymoron—good
  
  
  TV; the second was that she didn't want to run the car's battery
  
  
  down; and last, knowing her luck, as soon as she got settled in the
  
  
  passenger cabin, someone would come out of the big house in need of
  
  
  her services. It wouldn't look very professional if she were
  
  
  stretched out on the blu