Capital Punishment
*Starred Review* When Indian billionaire industrialist Frank D’Cruz, once a Mumbai gangster and later a Bollywood movie star, learns that his estranged daughter, Alyshia, has been kidnapped in London, he hires Charles Boxer to negotiate her recovery. Boxer, a former soldier and homicide cop, has something in common with D’Cruz; his teenage daughter, Amy, is furious with him. Boxer struggles to focus on his assignment but adds to his own difficulty by immediately falling in love with Alyshia’s mother. Strangely, the kidnappers seem more interested in tormenting D’Cruz than in ransom money, and soon MI5, MI6, and London’s Metropolitan Police are investigating D’Cruz’s myriad shady business contacts with rival Hindu and Muslim gangs, old-school London gangsters, mercenaries, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, and their links to each other and to the global drug trade and terrorism. It’s a testament to Wilson’s storytelling talents that all these threads don’t rob the book of its momentum or suspense. In fact, each is riveting, giving readers a glimpse of plausible alliances, rivalries, and murderous feuds that could explode in London or the U.S. Capital Punishment is taut and addictive, one of the best thrillers so far this year. --Thomas Gaughan