Hideout – Louisa Luna

Hideout is the third book in the Alice Vega series. it definitely can be read as a standalone and I plan to read the earlier books, time permitting. Alice is a specialist in missing persons, usually recently missing and, from what I can tell, endangered people. But this time she has a client who will pay the bills for awhile. She’s tasked with finding Zeb Williams, a man who disappeared after playing a memorable role in a UC Berkley/Stanford football game in the early 1980s. His girlfriend, from an obscenely wealthy family moved on and for unclear reasons, her husband wants Vega to find Zeb. There is one picture of him in an Oregon town, Ilona, taken soon after Zeb disappeared, then nothing. Vega has history with Max Caplan, divorced father of Nell who is heading to college soon. They were partners in some of her extremely dangerous work and he has been traumatized by an earlier case when Nell was held hostage. Vega takes extreme chances and it does not always go well for her or for those around her. Cap declines to get involved in this case, even though he is smitten with and respects Vega. Nell’s story is a nice thread throughout. I do not write reviews with spoilers, but the overall theme of the book is that something smells bad in Ilona, Oregon and it involves older men with power and teenaged boys who have been drawn into white supremacist groups. With her faithful hacker Bandit and her ability to connect dots with his information and her on legwork, Vega does her thing, once more putting those in her life in danger. A well-written mystery with a few twists, but a few things become clear early. That’s fine though. Good cast of villains, frightened townspeople and those brave enough to conquer fear.