[close] While Ridley Pearson's Lou Boldt series seems to have run out of steam lately, his new stand-alone thriller shows this perennial best-selling author at the top of his form. It begins with a taut prologue introducing federal marshal Roland Larson and his protected witrness, Hope Stevens, whose testimony will send the Romero crime family to jail if she ever makes it to court. When Hope walks away from the witness protection program, she takes Larson's heart with her; he hesitates just long enough to regret it; and spends the next six years searching for her. Then she surfaces again in connection with the disappearance of another protected witness, a computer expert who holds the safety of everyone in the program in the top secret software program he developed. Noone wants access to that program more than the Romero family, and Hope Stevens is the first and most important target of their wrath. As a member of the elite Fugitive Apprehension Task Force, Larson races the clock to find the man whose knowledge threatens the life of the woman he still loves…and the child he never knew he had. A heart-pounding thriller that's impossible to put down, this is Pearson's best to date. --Jane Adams [close]