Isaac Richmond decides to hire a detective to help him understand exactly what happened to his daughter and through the recommendation of Lieutenant Mike Angelo of the Chicago police department he contacts Ray Dudgeon, private investigator. Dudgeon is surprised and puzzled when Richmond hands him a check for fifty thousand dollars and tells him he wants him on the case for eight weeks.

Dudgeon doesn’t really expect to find much but his curiosity begins to perk up when he goes back over Police reports and finds large sections of information missing.  Nobody will tell him what happened to create the voids in the files and that makes Dudgeon all the more curious.

And then Dudgeon finds a previous connection between Joan Richmond and Steven Zhang.  They had worked together in the past for "Hawk River," a civilian security contractor frequently hired by the U. S, military in sensitive and violent areas throughout the world. Joan had been the payroll chief and Steven had been her technical assistant. Joan had quit Hawk River about ten months earlier and was being called on to testify as part of a government investigation of Hawk River.  The coincidences were becoming a little too much for Dudgeon to buy.

Dudgeon is able to schedule a meeting with Joseph Grant, the CEO of Hawk River, and his intimidating assistant Blake Sten.  There are bad vibes from the beginning and Dudgeon is rightfully on his guard in dealing with these men.

An interview with Amy Zhang, the murderer’s widow only adds to the mystery when she appears afraid of something that she can’t or won’t talk about. But after demonstrating his good intentions, Dudgeon wins her confidence and learns that Steven had been collecting data that could be extremely damaging to Hawk River as well as many of its clients and although Amy didn’t know the whereabouts of the information, she was sure that Hawk River hadn’t found it either.

This book is one of those classic page turners with a new danger on every page and a new challenge in every paragraph.  I love this kind of story which keeps the reader charging ahead without regard for their personal safety. Author Sean Chercover never lets it slow down and leaves you out of breath at the end.