Another great book from an author I'm liking more and more, narrated by the excellent Edoardo Ballerini, who has narrated all the books so far. He does a great job, and I hope he continues to narrate more books. I'll look out for him.

The book was brutal and unputdownable. It was about the trafficking of teenage girls from eastern Europe, some - the premium "product" - were around 16. They were from poor families, wanting a better life. An American man promised them the good life as a model, and made all the arrangements. They were very naive, and spoke little or no English.

The accommodations were not exactly first class. They were hidden in shipping containers, trucked to the docks where the box with them in it was transferred to a ship, sent to America, transferred to a truck, and trucked to a dungeon-like holding cell in a warehouse until they could be sold to rich men as toys. When they got too old, they would be replaced with new ones.

They were not the only victims of this story. Some of the men who handled them were also victims of the boss, who was known as The Dragon. This guy was truly evil. But somehow, the author made some of his underlings seem human for a while, and even sympathetic but that was just temporary. Most of them eventually showed their true colors, if you consider black a color.

Stevens and Windermere work by dedication and hard work, not by being some super heroes, and they both are shown as just normal people with lives like anyone else. We even get a bit of family drama in the Stevens' family, as he has a teenaged daughter with a new boyfriend who is at the age where she is constantly embarrassed by her parents (and vice-versa at one point). But the real hero in this story might just be the young girl who follows her older sister to America, and is selected for special treatment, to end with a horrible death by The Dragon's scary knife.

I plan to read the next two soon, and hope for more. Or, more from the Neah Bay series, which I also liked a lot. I think there are a few odds and ends also, which I will try. If you've never heard of Owen Laukkanen, I'm jealous; you have his whole collection to look forward to. ( )

This is the fourth book in Owen Laukkanen’s series featuring Special agent Kirk Stevens of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and his FBI partner, Carla Windermere. Two Romanian sisters are among a group of kidnapped women being brought to the USA in a shipping container by a sex trafficking ring. When one of them escapes, Stevens and Windermere try to track down the criminals in time to save the girls.

This has turned out to be one of my favorite series. The author does a great job of making his good guys good and his bad guys bad. There's not a lot of nuance to the characters but when I'm looking for an action movie style book, I can't find too many authors better than this one.

This is a fast paced novel with an intriguing story line. The relationship between Stevens and Windermere continues to be one of the most interesting among the male/female partnerships in crime fiction. Kirk Stevens is a middle-aged and white, with a beautiful wife and two kids. Carla Windermere is a beautiful single black woman from Miami who has been assigned to the Minneapolis office of the FBI. They have an underlying attraction that they are both too honorable to act on.

I listened to the audio book narrated by Eduardo Ballerini. I've only recently discovered this narrator and I'm definitely going to look for other audio books by him. His narration is exceptional and he even does a very believable Romanian accent. This book could easily be read as a standalone novel. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a fast-paced and exciting police procedural thriller.
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This is the fourth book in Owen Laukkanen’s series featuring Special agent Kirk Stevens of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and his FBI partner, Carla Windermere. Two Romanian sisters are among a group of kidnapped women being brought to the USA in a shipping container by a sex trafficking ring. When one of them escapes, Stevens and Windermere try to track down the criminals in time to save the girls.

This has turned out to be one of my favorite series. The author does a great job of making his good guys good and his bad guys bad. There's not a lot of nuance to the characters but when I'm looking for an action movie style book, I can't find too many authors better than this one.

This is a fast paced novel with an intriguing story line. The relationship between Stevens and Windermere continues to be one of the most interesting among the male/female partnerships in crime fiction. Kirk Stevens is a middle-aged and white, with a beautiful wife and two kids. Carla Windermere is a beautiful single black woman from Miami who has been assigned to the Minneapolis office of the FBI. They have an underlying attraction that they are both too honorable to act on.

I listened to the audio book narrated by Eduardo Ballerini. I've only recently discovered this narrator and I'm definitely going to look for other audio books by him. His narration is exceptional and he even does a very believable Romanian accent. This book could easily be read as a standalone novel. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a fast-paced and exciting police procedural thriller. ( )

[The Stolen Ones] by Owen Laukkanen
Stevens & Windemere series Book #4
4★'s

From The Book:
When you’ve got nothing left, you’ve got nothing left to lose. Cass County, Minnesota: A sheriff’s deputy steps out of a diner on a rainy summer evening, and a few minutes later, he’s lying dead in the mud. When BCA agent Kirk Stevens arrives on the scene, he discovers local authorities have taken into custody a single suspect: A hysterical young woman found sitting by the body, holding the deputy’s own gun. She has no ID, speaks no English. A mystery woman.

The mystery only deepens from there, as Stevens and Carla Windermere, his partner in the new joint BCA–FBI violent crime task force, find themselves on the trail of a massive international kidnapping and prostitution operation. Before the two agents are done, they will have traveled over half the country, from Montana to New York, and come face-to-face not only with the most vicious man either of them has ever encountered—but two of the most courageous women.

My Thoughts:
I read the first three books previously and they were all 5 star books. This one looses some of the rating...not because it isn't well written or as dynamic as the past three but because for one thing...it deals with a horrific subject...human sex trade trafficking...and two...because Windermere's horrible treatment of Mathers is becoming almost unbearable. If she doesn't want him to live with her just tell him and stop insulting him.

I really like Owen Laukkanen's writing style and will certainly read more of his works. I just hope he brings back the Windermere that we met in the first three books. She was flawed but she was at least reasonable in her thinking. ( )

The Stolen Ones, Owen Laukkanen's latest, is a dynamite thriller that may well be the best of the Windermere/Stevens series thus far. The plot, which involves the investigation of young eastern European women being brought into the US as sex slaves, is fast-paced and believable. Laukkanen's writing style is a fine match for the action- nothing fancy, just straightforward narrative and dialogue.

I particularly enjoyed the interaction between the main law enforcement characters: FBI agent Windermere, her episodic counterpart on the Minnesota BCA, Stevens, and Windermere's romantic interest, Mathers. Windermere's a great presence and Stevens, a highly effective cop in his own right, is a perfect complement to her. Mathers is a sort of weak link, but Windermere needs him in more ways than one and I expect he'll be developed further as the series moves along.

The only weak part of the novel is its ending. The methods and procedures that get us to that point are fine, but some of the action at the end seems to be a little 'out there'. The conclusion is satisfactory, though, and the rest of the story was so compelling and believable that you can let the author blow off a little steam getting there. ( )