Threat of a Stranger

A Boy Vanishes--
Chris, just five years old, is as persistent as a bumblebee on clover. He whines until he convinces his mother, Diane, to let him go fishing in the shallow stream near their vacation cabin in the North Carolina mountains. The serene woods around the cabin--shaded by tall trees, cooled by the soft summer breezes, and blessed with the magic music of birds--seems to hold no threat, yet Chris vanishes without a trace.

A Mother Taps Her Strength--
Numbed by her loss, Diane begins a long and arduous search for her son. Adrift in a sea of sadness, she taps the strength of a mother's love to stay on course.

A Detective Becomes Obsessed--
Steve Williams, a rugged detective with a tender core, toughened by calluses of disappointment, is nearing the end of a frustrating career. He wants to restore Diane's family, to have this success story to tell his grandchildren, to be a hero at last. After years of fruitless leads, Williams traces a trail of clues to a criminal network that imports stolen Hispanic children into the United States.

A Businessman Goes Bad--
Buck Stanley, an underhanded wealthy Southerner with a boyish face and a self-effacing country bumpkin charm, has acquired his position in life through no effort of his own. His family's aircraft parts business, lucrative and well organized, gives him a title, but no job. Hard-drinking and bored, Buck enrolls in the child-smuggling cartel.

In Threat of a Stranger, a mother tells the story of the search for her lost son, her jumble of emotions as she faces sorrow and guilt, emptiness and pain. As connections weave among the wicked underworld characters, the tale of an injured family, their trials and joy, parallels the mystery.