The greatest danger arises from two merciless malefactors, lying in wait, eager to sweep in and snatch what’s left of the failed kidnapping to satisfy their own perverse ends.

Pulled into his destructive orbit are two unsavory, but not altogether unredeemable accomplices, who concoct their own twisted plots to save themselves after the chaotic kidnapping scheme falls apart before Elle is ransomed and returned to her father. Druckman is involved, as Burton quickly reveals with an about-face, taking the reader back to the inciting incident for the man’s desperate act-a private meeting during which his biggest investor exposes the financial wunderkind as a fraud, a financial PONZI artist, Chicago’s clone of Bernie Madoff.įorced into an unwieldy deal to make reparations to his client, the frantic financier sets off on a desperate, ill-conceived plan to save himself from losing all his money, his family, and his freedom. Of course, Vira’s golden retriever truth detector is right on the nose. Her keen sense of smell draws her back to the mansion, pointing the proverbial finger-or in this case, nose-at Druckman as a suspect in the jewelry heist, the brutal murder of his wife, and the kidnapping of their daughter. A desperate search for clues to the perpetrators’ escape leads Mace and Vira through the property’s dense woodlands to Calley’s battered and bloody body.īut for Vira, the trail doesn’t end there. The story centers on dog trainer Mason “Mace” Reid and his cadaver dog, Vira (short for “Elvira”), called to the Chicago lakeside estate of billionaire financier Kenneth Druckman after a late-night home invasion ends with millions in stolen jewelry and the abduction of the man’s wife, Calley, a retired supermodel, and their five-year-old daughter, Elle. Told via a four-part narrative of escalating action and danger, THE LOST is filled with great characters-dry-witted heroes, braves canines, dedicated cops, bumbling and devious villains alike-along with a stunning climax. Indeed, Burton’s experiment, a twisting thriller of greed, revenge, regret, and cold-blooded evil, is a brilliantly plotted success.

Thankfully, Burton was never actually lost, as might be inferred from the title. “It was the first time I experimented writing from the seat of my pants, rather than working strictly from an outline,” he says. Burton set out to write THE LOST, the third book in his K-9 mystery series, he wasn’t quite sure where he was headed.

The finders by jeffrey b burton