Doubleback by Libby Fischer Hellmann

Georgia Davis is back in this thriller, the follow-up to 2008's acclaimed novel Easy Innocence. The kidnapping of a little girl on the North Shore of Chicago sets in motion a chain of events that brings together Georgia Davis and Ellie Foreman from the lakes of Wisconsin to the rocky terrain of Arizona.
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There is a lot going on in this book - kidnapping, murder, misappropriated funds, illegal immigrant smuggling, and drugs. Now, if you can keep all that straight you can enjoy Doubleback.

This novel begins with an elevator scene in a undisclosed location. Fear grips all involved as the express elevator comes to a sudden stop, throws everyone to the floor and goes dark. Jump to three days earlier and a child is stolen from her school with a warning to keep the police out of it and nothing else. Now enter Georgia Davis, a former police officer turned P.I., and Ellie Foreman, a video producer and neighbor of the kidnapped child. Ellie becomes involved as a neighbor and calls in Georgia hoping that she can help solve the kidnapping. However, the child is returned 3 days later unharmed. Story over...not quite. This is followed by the murder of a bank executive and then the mother of the child. Georgia is hired by the ex-husband to solve the crime. As she begins to investigate she is thrown in many directions and must travel to Arizona to solve the mystery surrounding all the illegal activity.

I enjoyed this novel, but I think I would have liked it more had I read Easy Innocence. Several references were made to the first novel without much information on what happened. If I have read the first novel I appreciate that, but as a new reader it left me with questions. I guess that is good for the author, because I enjoyed this enough that I would read Easy Innocence.