Gone without trace - CJ Carver

Formerly a Captain in the Paras, Jay McCaulay is highly trained, tough and resourceful. She's been working with the aid agency TRACE for two years, helping track and unite families separated by conflict. Jay can look after herself - until she spots someone from her past. It is a past that involves Zamira, a young girl who Jay saved from being killed in Kosovo - a past that clashes with the present when Milot Dumani, an organised crime boss from Macedonia, appears on the streets of Jay's home town.

Jay's specialist knowledge means she is perfect for an MI6 mission to find out why Milot is in the UK. She doesn't want the job, but since her relationship with DI Tom Sutton is going nowhere unless she decides to commit, she seeks refuge in the mission to restore some equilibrium to her life. When she hears Zamira has vanished from her home in Macedonia, possibly trafficked into the UK - Jay's mission becomes personal. Thrown into a world that inspires paranoia, where brutal Mafia thugs give no quarter, and where her family and loved-ones are threatened, Jay must confront a trail of murder, corruption and evil that has entwined itself from Eastern Europe into the heart of the United Kingdom.

CJ Carver was born in the UK. At 22 she went to Australia for a holiday and stayed for 10 years, working in publishing and travelling. In 1992 she took part in the London to Saigon Car Rally, where she and her co-driver were the only all-female crew on a 63-day, 12,500 mile journey. In 1993, she fell into freelance writing and since then has worked locally while writing and travelling. In 1998, she completed the London to Cape Town Car Rally, once again the only all-female crew. She blames her love of adventure on her parents: her mother set the land speed record in Australia and her father was a jet fighter pilot.