Waking Up

A debut novel set in the meshed worlds of real estate, finance and pharmaceuticals."You heard me, jerkoff. I got your son." Michael Hayes has had better phone calls than the one that opens Traum's novel, but at least he's got a couple of things going for him: His daughter is safe, and he's got the gruff-voiced bad guy's phone number on his caller ID. Unless...Well, he's got one thing going for him, apart from the help of a few friendly, efficient cops, some of whom have done this enough to know that you don't have to look at the address to know which house is the victim's: "It had to be the one all lit up. He grunted, 'That's gotta be it, Gus, ' to his partner." Enter Hayes's faithful friend Soo-Mee Yeong, of piercing analytical ability and a habit of remembering bad clients from years past--one of whom, a nefarious mobster from across the seas, bears Hayes considerable ill will for losing a chunk of his change in a bad market, and just may be tied up in the current brouhaha. Traum

When his 11-year-old son is kidnapped and murdered, a distraught Michael Hayes faces the potential end of his family and his booming business, Eagle Realty. The police fail to find the killer, leading Hayes and his Eagle colleague, Soo-Mee Yeong, to embark on their own investigation. Enlisting the aid of an old friend who has his own ties to the criminal underground, the duo focus on a Japanese mobster who, when attempting to launder money, suffered substantial losses in an Eagle real estate transaction managed by Hayes. The search leads Hayes and Yeong through the shadow world of drug smuggling and duplicitous real estate deals in America and Japan. Will they find the killer and bring him to justice? Joe Traum brings memorable characters, colorful locales, and a page-turning plot to this fascinating thriller.