Thriller writer Barry Eisler wrote a cracking story last time out, with THE GOD'S EYE VIEW about surveillance society. This time he has chosen a different hero, but still he is on the side of someone disadvantaged and alienated. LIVIA LONE is a motorbike riding cop today but previously she was a small Thai girl who was snatched by child traffickers, along with her little sister Nason. Her story is told in alternating time period chapters.

Seattle's police don't know why some violent serial rapists are ending up dead. Livia does, but she's not telling her bosses. Her concern is more for finding her vanished sister Nason. Wherever that might take her. Building cases against rapists and bullies, she works particularly on the cases of abused children. Only if the justice system lets the victims down does Livia take matters further. She has developed into both heroine and anti-heroine. Then Homeland Security decides to send someone about a joint task force. Will this help or hinder the nemesis Livia has become?

While boys and girls both are sold by the traffickers, we stay with young Livia to learn the abuses carried out by these vile men against helpless children. Smuggled out of Thailand, brought to America in a container ship like wholesale goods, the child vows to watch and learn anything that might aid her. Some of the tale can be very distressing. We can understand from this section, why the grown-up Livia is so determined to stop the evil. I thought she was lucky to be brought to America, because I have read that enslaved Thai girls are forced to be house servants in Saudi Arabia, with no rights. In America, the police are on her side. But evil and exploitation are all around her.

The trademark gadgetry and phone surveillance is on display of course, as gang members carry disposable phones along with personal phones and a gadget can identify both, placing a criminal at a scene and tracking his movements. But martial arts and dogged determination are much more to the fore in LIVIA LONE which is planned to be the first in a series also called 'Livia Lone'. Barry Eisler once again appends some references and links at the back, so you can learn the judo moves or check out the phone scanners. I just hope you'll never need them. This kind of deadly action should stay in the thrillers.

Book Summary

Seattle PD sex-crimes detective Livia Lone knows the monsters she hunts. Sold by her Thai parents along with her little sister, Nason; marooned in America; abused by the men who trafficked them…the only thing that kept Livia alive as a teenager was her determination to find Nason.

Livia has never stopped looking. And she copes with her failure to protect her sister by doing everything she can to put predators in prison.

Or, when that fails, by putting them in the ground.

But when a fresh lead offers new hope of finding Nason and the men who trafficked them both, Livia will have to go beyond just being a cop. Beyond even being a vigilante. She’ll have to relive the horrors of the past. Take on one of the most powerful men in the US government. And uncover a conspiracy of almost unimaginable evil.

In every way, it’s an unfair fight. But Livia has two advantages: her unending love for Nason—

And a lifelong lust for vengeance.