FAMILY MONEY

A do-gooder family’s latest act of charity leads to sudden disaster.

And it’s really sudden, as Alex Mahan, founder of a successful Austin software company who’s come with his wife and her parents to Mexico to help with some construction work in an orphanage, watches in stunned horror while Joe Dobson, his father-in-law, is snatched from a street in Mexico and driven off on the opening page. The biggest initial mystery about his abduction is why Joe would shout to Alex that he was sorry as his kidnappers hooded and bundled him into the back of a van. But that riddle is soon joined by others. Who is the “Greta” who texted Joe on suspiciously intimate terms shortly before he was taken? Why were two boxes full of documents about Grande Distributors stolen when Joe retired from his law practice? And where did the $5 million he invested in Alex’s startup really come from? Alex first awaits a ransom demand that never arrives; then, after Joe’s body is discovered in the smoldering wreck of the van, asks nosy questions of every one of Joe’s associates he can dig up. Incredibly, most of them respond with meticulously detailed information that all points in one direction: Alex’s beloved father-in-law was living a second life under an assumed name after his supposed death in a plane crash with his own father 35 years ago after apparently stealing $50 million from a criminal network. The involvement of agents from the CIA and Mexico’s CNI raises the stakes without solving the mystery. Despite those initial questions, though, Zunker doesn’t provide that much mystery to be solved.

Pray that your own trips across the border turn out better.