Written in 2000, it describes the efforts of a Las Vegas thief and parolee, Cassie Black, to raise enough money to kidnap her natural daughter and take off for Tahiti.

It starts slow and then slows down. It finally picks up the pace about 150 pages in and in the last 40 pages moves very quickly to tie up all the loose ends. The ending is not very satisfying but somewhat logical. I believe he hasn't written any more stories about Cassie Black and maybe it's just as well.

The major villain, Jack Karch, is a real piece of sociopathic work and his boss Vincent Grimaldi is such a stereotype that it is difficult to find him interesting. Usually, in Connelly's much celebrated Harry Bosch series, even the villains have some redeeming qualities but not in this story. Not a lot of moral ambiguity to be found here except how Cassie is going to live with the knowledge of the large number of people she managed to get killed in her pursuit of her daughter.

Overall, this particular effort was a disappointment.