The Professionals

Four friends, caught in a terrible job market, joke about turning to kidnapping to survive. And then, suddenly, it's no joke. For two years, the strategy they devise works like a charm - until they kidnap the wrong man. Now two groups are after them - the law, in the form of veteran state investigator Kirk Stevens and hotshot young FBI agent Carla Windermere, and an organized crime outfit looking for payback. As they crisscross the country in a series of increasingly explosive confrontations, each of them is ultimately forced to recognize the truth: the real professionals, cop or criminal, are those who are willing to sacrifice everything.

A graduate of the University of British Columbia's Creative Writing program, Owen Laukkanen spent three years in the world of professional poker reporting before turning to fiction. He currently lives in Vancouver, where he's hard at work on the third and fourth installments in the Stevens and Windermere series.