This tense, deftly crafted story is the latest in a series of crime novels featuring Rick Mofina’s signature character: hard-nosed crime reporter Tom Reed. We were first introduced to Reed, a man who wrestles with both inner and outer demons, in Angels Fall. Two more critically acclaimed thrillers, Cold Fear and The Blood of Others, quickly followed this masterful first novel.

In No Way Back, the world-weary Reed finally promises his wife that he will quit the journalism business and concentrate on sobriety and family. However, when his wife is kidnapped, Reed finds himself living out a strange kind of karma. After years of pursuing crime stories with little consideration for the victims’ families, the Pulitzer-nominated journalist now finds himself the focus of a grossly insensitive media machine that includes a former porn star bent on making millions by selling videotapes of the crime.

Reed’s wife is trussed up in the trunk of a car and hauled across the country by two twisted ex-convicts who have already beheaded and mutilated their heroin-addicted female accomplice. But at a time when he really needs to use his crime-sniffing skills to pursue the story, Reed finds that he is unable to – because he is the story.

Mofina’s fiction derives its unique sense of authenticity from his experience as a freelance true-crime writer for various international newspapers and publications. His extensive involvement with law enforcement, forensics, surveillance, and the media gives readers an insider’s view of the detective and journalism businesses.

Mofina also understands the dictates of crime fiction, including a main character who refuses to be “broken” by the forces of evil, chapters that end with big cliff-hangers, and a swift but stingy narrative that delivers information and action on a need-to-know basis only.