GOOD AS GONE

A child’s kidnapping leads a specialist in child recovery on a torrid chase across two continents.

Simon Fisk’s stint as a U.S. Marshal ended when his daughter Hailey was kidnapped. His wife, Tasha, was so distraught when she couldn’t be found that she swallowed a lethal dose of pills. Now, Simon makes his living recovering children abducted by estranged parents who’ve taken them to countries that won’t return them to the U.S. He’s just wrapping up a case in France when he’s grabbed by the local gendarmes. They press him to meet with Vince and Lori Sorkin, whose daughter Lindsay has been grabbed by somebody who’s not her parent. Showing a generally well-concealed soft side, Simon at last agrees to help. Lindsay’s trail takes him to Germany, Poland, Ukraine and Belarus. Along the way, he picks up sidekicks as different as Berlin private eye Kurt Ostermann and Warsaw lawyer Anastazja, but Corleone (Last Lawyer Standing, 2012, etc.) keeps the pattern reassuringly similar: Simon makes contact with criminal small fry who lead him to bigger fry; he confronts the bigger fry and demands information about Lindsay; they stonewall; bang bang bang. The most pleasing complication—everywhere in Europe Simon goes, he is himself wanted for kidnapping or related felonies—passes away when he crosses into Asia. What’s left is the deep, uncomplicated pleasure of watching a skilled professional kick major ass.

“What’s more noble than trying to rescue an imperiled child?” Simon asks himself. Nobility is in short supply here, but this self-assessment is a lot more accurate than his reflection that “this wasn’t an action movie.”