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Novel by Carl Vonderau
Reviewed by Pennell Paugh
September 24, 2024 (San Diego) – Award-winning San Diego mystery/thriller author Carl Vonderau's critically acclaimed novel, Saving Myles, weaves a gripping tale of a couple who encounter intrigue and danger as they race to save their drug-addicted son from kidnappers south of the border.
Wade, a La Jolla banker, and his wife, Fiona, send their teenage son, Myles, to an expensive treatment center. After a year of treatment, Myles comes home and initially seems rehabilitated, but soon sneaks off to Tijuana with a girl who intends to buy drugs. To protect her, Myles goes to make the purchase.
Instead, he is abducted. When the ransom call comes, Myles’ frantic parents must raise the money overnight. Fiona, desperate, accepts money through an illegal transaction funneled through the foundation that she runs.
The couple breaks up, but they continue to work together to save their son. Wade asks the FBI to help, but the agency can’t help them rescue their son on foreign soil. Wade works with a shady negotiator to bring his son home.Prior to receiving the ransom money, Wade makes a deal — but soon learns that he’s become wrapped up in more than a kidnapping — he’s become employed and indebted to a cartel.
Below is an excerpt from the novel:
W A D E
May 2018
Wade Bosworth turned on the front lights of his house for the men who would take away his son. He’d never met them, but on the internet, they appeared in their twenties. The men were driving down from LA and had texted that they’d be on time. He made his way to the dark kitchen and sat down. Through the screen of the window, he heard the chirr of crickets, then the neighbor’s tree rustling and settling back into the dark. He breathed in the quiet enormity of what he was doing. It was four a.m. His son didn’t know what was about to happen. In less than an hour his life would be ripped in two. Myles was sixteen years old.
Wade put the water on the stove to boil and crept up the groaning stairs to the bedroom. He and Fiona dressed in the dark, then padded down the hallway to listen outside Myles’ room. No growls and screeching of heavy metal music. No tapping computer keys. Wade eased open the door. The lava lamp Myles had begged them to buy oozed red bubbles that cast a blush over their son in his bed. Asleep, his face looked like a child’s. It was hard to square that face to the rants in magic marker on the window shades. “Fuck families.” “I’m an alien trapped in La Jolla.” “Does a zombie know he’s a zombie?” Wade breathed in the musky odor of marijuana. He needed to center that smell in his thoughts. It was evidence that they were doing the right thing.
This novel is so realistic, it feels like a true-life story — from how Myles adjusts when he returns home and the program’s wisdom that he quotes, to the conflicts his parents have because their son has been a source of trouble and pain most of his young life. The story grabs you on the first page and doesn’t let go until the book ends. For anyone who enjoys an action-packed mystery, Saving Myles is a must-read.
Saving Myles has won multiple awards, including the American BookFest Best Book award for best mystery and suspense, the National Indie Excellence award for best thriller, the Pencraft award for best suspense, and finalist awards for the American Legacy’s best mystery/suspense and thriller prizes.
Carl Vonderau is also author of Murderabilia, winner of the best debut award at Left Coast Crime, and the San Diego Book award for best mystery. He is president of the San Diego chapter of Partners in Crime.
Author appearances Oct. 24 and Oct. 26
Vonderau will be at Mysterious Galaxy on Oct. 24 with Margaret Mizushima. They will discuss Saving Myles, as well as Mizushima’s new book, Gathering Mist.
He also plans to sell his book at the North Park Festival on October 26.
In addition, he will be teaching at the Southern California Writers Conference in San Diego on Feb. 15, 2025.
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