If a book doesn't grab me and keep me past the first 25 pages, sometimes much less, I put it aside. I stayed with this one until the very end. Nicely characterized and nicely plotted. A good balance between the two. Very impressed!

Saving Myles had me hooked from the very beginning. The nonstop action and terror just keeps escalating, making it difficult to put down. I can totally see this as a movie!

3.5 stars
Parents determined to save their son! Saving Myles is presented from the point of view of the family and makes this a different read that you may enjoy.

This story shows how far teenagers will push their parents and how far parents will go to save their children.

The story starts quickly drawing you in and then just does not let go.

A wonderful read.

Saving Myles
Carl Vonderau
reviewed by Lou Jacobs

readersremains.com | Goodreads
Is there anything a parent wouldn’t do to save his child’s life? Author Vonderau ponders this question in this riveting, edge-of-your-seat thriller, his follow-up novel to the award-winning debut, “Murderabilia.” Wade and Fiona Bosworth are both highly successful in their own right in the affluent lifestyle of La Jolla, CA. Their lives come to a crashing halt when their eighteen-year-old son becomes embroiled in the drug world.
Fearing the inevitable downward spiral of drug life, they literally mortgage their future to send him to Hidden Road Academy, an intensive, life-altering, regimented drug rehab program in the mountains of Utah. They blame each other for their failings; it seems they have always fought and argued about Myles for most of his life. Wade, a highly respected senior banker at a prestigious bank, admits he has spent so much time at work that he has neglected his duties as both a father and husband. He moves out and lives in a high-rise condo in Little Italy, mourning the loss of his son and wife.
Myles returns home after a year of rehab, appearing different and responsible. He lives with his mother, accepting the rules of a Home Contract. However, barely four months after his return, the rules start to slide. In his mother’s BMW, he sneaks across the border to Tijuana, Mexico, to party with his new girlfriend, Melissa. Her image screams trouble, with her spiked leather collar, purple hair (it was blue last week), and a tight black t-shirt designed to show off her buxom figure.
In the next scene, Wade is abruptly awakened in the early morning hours by his apartment buzzer. Standing before him is Peter Vanhoven, father of Melissa and a very successful investment banker. Melissa has called him from Tijuana: “Myles has disappeared.” He was apparently kidnapped from a parking lot at a raucous bar. These two high-flying deal-makers, both with marital problems and kid troubles, immediately join forces and drive to Tijuana. Wade contacts the consulate and the FBI, who state they cannot intervene. The Tijuana Police Force refers them to a special kidnapping unit. The kidnappers contact Wade, suggesting he sell his assets and borrow what he can; a ransom request will follow. Their ultimate demand is five hundred thousand, a sum they most certainly do not have. Fiona works for a highly successful charitable organization, “Comunidad de Ninos,” ironically aiming to “save children’s lives.” Her charismatic boss and CEO of the charity, Andre Ouelette, suggests she sign a promissory note and borrow the money from the charity. Simultaneously, Andre pressures Wade with an offer: “come work for me” in exchange for help in paying the ransom.
Wade’s moral radar blares. He considers Andre’s sketchy reputation, questionable client list, and shadowy ownership, suspecting criminal involvement and money laundering behind Andre’s bank: Unity Coast Bank.
Carl Vonderau masterfully weaves a complex and twisted narrative, exploring the depths of a parent’s love when faced with seemingly unfathomable criminal situations. Intrigue, suspense, and tension are ratcheted up to an unbearable degree as they confront deceit, double-crossing, and an invasive Mexican family drug cartel that will stop at nothing.
Thanks to NetGalley and Oceanview Publishing for providing an Uncorrected Proof in exchange for an honest review.

Read my full review here: http://mimi-cyberlibrarian.blogspot.com/2023/09/saving-myles.html

It is every parent’s worst nightmare: Wade and Fiona Bosworth are shocked to find that their 18-year-old son, Myles, is using drugs and may even be selling them. They had already spent a huge amount of money at a drug-rehab program at the Hidden Road Academy in Utah, and now, he seems to have stooped even lower. The stress has caused his parents to separate, and the carefully crafted training Myles has been under has crashed. He has a new girlfriend, and together they cross the border to Tijuana to buy drugs to sell.

Myles is kidnapped by a drug cartel, and the kidnappers are asking a huge amount of ransom. Although Wade is a banker, he does not have the resources to meet the ransom demands until Fiona’s boss at the nonprofit she works for says he can help with the ransom. Everything in all of their lives falls apart at the moment.

The first half of Saving Myles is very much concerned with Myles’ welfare—his training at the Academy, his rebellion, his kidnapping, and the ways his parents negotiate to pay the ransom with help from Andre, Fiona’s boss. It is then that Wade’s banker training kicks in. We learn more than we might want to learn about real estate bankers, the complexities of banking, and possible collusion with rich Mexican criminals. Everything bogs down for a while, and then in the last quarter of the book, we reach a satisfactory conclusion on all fronts.

It is obvious that Vonderau knows a lot about banking, because, of course, his first career was as a banker. I have often chuckled about how many thriller authors are former lawyers, and now we have a banker. The kind of business he does is very much like the kind of business my husband did, real estate investment. I understood the complexities that Wade is negotiating as he works to find the money to pay the kidnappers, but I could only imagine what the reader who knows nothing about this type of finance is thinking. Luckily, readers are so concerned about saving Myles that they can just read through the morass of business dealings.

In other words, the worry about Myles supersedes the complexities of the narrative. One reviewer says, “Carl Vonderau masterfully weaves a complex and twisted narrative, exploring the depths of a parent’s love when faced with seemingly unfathomable criminal situations, intrigue, suspense and tension.”
I don’t think that I would have found Saving Myles on my own, but it came to me from the publisher. The cover and description intrigued me, and the tension of the plot kept me reading. I think you will as well.

When Wade and Fiona’s son Myles gets kidnapped in Tijuana, they must decide what lengths they will go through to get him back from the Mexican cartel. The problems they faced before the kidnapping come to a screeching halt and in no way compare to what they are going to face now. In a novel full of twists and turns, it brings to light the questions one would ask themself if they were in the families position.

This was hard to read. Addiction is never easy to read about but this was just too dark for me and I lost interest in it all I'm afraid. Not for me but it was interesting finding out about drug cartels but it just depressed me. sorry

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced digital copy of this book.

I didn't like this book. I didn't connect with any of the characters, but I was determined to finish it and, hopefully, get something out of it. But I didn't. Two parents, who for whatever reason have hopelessly spoiled their son, because, well, I don't really know. They are supposedly intelligent people, but have not one intelligent thought about Myles. Now he is 16, smokes pot continuously IN THEIR HOUSE, and his mother, while cleaning his room (why?) finds a stash of Oxycontin. So they max out their finances, including taking a second mortgage on their house, and send him to a bootcamp-type facility to get cleaned up. He, of course, thinks this is HORRIBLE, and his mother agrees. After a year, he returns and he and his mother promptly ignore everything they supposedly learned and he is back to his old ways very quickly. Mom and Dad have separated during his absence, so he chooses to live with Mom, who has never said the word "NO" to him in his life.

Very soon, he is in Tijuana, Mexico, which is only 35 or so miles away, and trying to purchase drugs to sell for money to "escape" his parents. Instead, he gets kidnapped. And his parents have already spent all they have on this brat, so they get into some risky, and illegal, deals to get him back.

Then it just gets worse and less believable. NO ONE learns anything. NO ONE has a coherent thought, seemingly. The excuse is always "teenage boys NEED a girlfriend" or "teenagers can't live without their social media" or" we don't think we could live in a small rural town so we eed to live in Chicago" as the situation just keeps deteriorating. I don't look forward to a sequel because they are ALL going to end up dead. And it all could have been avoided, but only by smarter people.

The book at the potential to be a great read. But I just couldn't get into it. I didn't find any character that made me care. There is plenty of action and intrigue. I can see it will be a popular book. It just isn't my kind of story.

When you become a parent, life becomes so much bigger than you. Suddenly, you have this helpless little person to care for and raise and guide in the right direction. You would do absolutely anything for your child. And in Saving Miles by author Carl Vonderau, a couple of parents find themselves sacrificing everything to save their son.

Full review published on NightsAndWeekends.com and aired on Shelf Discovery.

This is a story of how parents will do almost anything to protect their child. It starts off with a great building of suspense. Then it bogged down flashing between different characters and chasing too many storylines. I wasn’t sure how it was all going to connect. Then, after 300 plus pages, it just rushed into an unbelievable conclusion. I wanted to like this story, and I stuck with it, but once I finished it, I didn’t think of anyone I would recommend it to.

I liked the premise of a kidnapping. I liked how the father was willing to do anything to get his son back. After about a third of the book, however, I felt the pace really slowed and the action was not nearly as interesting for me. I struggled to keep reading. I did not find the characters particularly engaging. I was not impressed with the parents and how they had apparently raised Myles nor Myles himself.

I appreciated Vonderau's writing style, especially the scene descriptions. I just did not find the characters engaging nor the plot engaging overall.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book through Swell Media. My comments are an independent and honest review.

I love the plot of this book and the author’s writing style. But there were some weak points and a stretch of imagination that brought the book down in my rating.
Wade and his estranged wife Fiona are trying to share the responsibility of raising their son, Myles. After some tough love decisions, they learn quickly that Myles didn’t learn any life lessons in his boot camp. He’s kidnapped by the cartel in Mexico while conducting a drug deal.
When the ransom demand comes in, the couple is forced to try some unorthodox ways to come up with the money. What sounded like their only choice turns out quickly to be very ill-advised.
Through the negotiations, the character development of the main characters falls shallow. Myles, in particular, displays as a son we would all cringe to deal with- he’s arrogant, self-absorbed, and horribly spoiled. His parents' actions and how they respond to stress is an obvious sign that they helped create this desperate young man.
As the suspense winds down, the belief that true young love can be found in 2-3 weeks; a love that you should marry and spend the rest of your life with casts a silly pall over the plotline.
I stayed with the book and completed it. I was interested in how the plot unfolded and what would happen in the end. But I would shy away from recommending this to a friend.
Thanks to Oceanview Publishing for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. The publishing date is August 15, 2023.

Carl Vonderau delivers a heart-pounding thriller in "Saving Myles," a gripping tale of a father's relentless pursuit to rescue his kidnapped son. Set against the backdrop of La Jolla, California, this suspenseful novel explores the lengths to which a desperate parent is willing to go when all conventional options fail.

Wade, a respected banker in the idyllic town, faces the most agonizing decision of his life when he and his estranged wife, Fiona, make the heart-wrenching choice to send their troubled son, Myles, to a treatment center. After a year of intensive therapy, Myles returns home seemingly transformed, giving his parents a glimmer of hope for his future. However, their optimism is shattered when Myles vanishes again, this time falling into the clutches of a dangerous underworld in Tijuana.

As the clock ticks and the kidnappers demand a ransom, Fiona turns to Andre, a charismatic Quebecois involved in charity work with Fiona. Despite Wade's reservations about Andre's motives and his bank's connections, he finds himself with no other choice but to collaborate with him to secure his son's safe return.

Vonderau masterfully navigates the tension between a father's unwavering love for his son and the murky world of crime that he is forced to navigate. Wade's determination leads him down a perilous path, as he makes a life-altering deal with Andre to work for his bank in exchange for the ransom money. However, as Wade races against time to rescue Myles, he realizes that he has become entangled in a web of criminal activity that extends far beyond a simple kidnapping.

The novel's pacing is relentless, keeping readers on the edge of their seats as they accompany Wade on his harrowing journey. Vonderau skillfully weaves a web of intrigue and suspense, exploring themes of desperation, morality, and the blurred lines between right and wrong. The vividly depicted settings, from the picturesque town of La Jolla to the dangerous underworld of Tijuana, add depth and authenticity to the narrative.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Swell Media for the advanced copy of this riveting and tortuous book! Carl had me on the edge of my seat as I followed along with every choice that Wade and Fiona made. The stakes were so high that I felt like I was on the edge of a cliff, waiting to jump down into nothingness. I was totally enthralled with the suspense between these pages, and the chilling truth that a parent will do anything for their child.

Said child, Myles, has had a long battle with drugs. Wade, his father, and Fiona, his mother, band together one more time in order to send him to a rehab center. Little do they know-- they're going to have to work in tandem to save his life again when Myles is kidnapped by a drug cartel. In order to get him back, instead of working with the DEA and the FBI, the estranged parents find themselves in a money laundering endeavor that somehow has ties to the very same people that took their son.

I think this novel does a great job exploring just how twisted and far reaching corruption can be. It seeps into everything it touches, even the people who are supposed to be the good guys. Despite this-- there is still good in the world, and here that is represented by parental love. I don't want to go too much into the plot and give things away, but all I can say is that the twists here are to die for, and the fast pace of the first half of the book will get you hooked while the denouement will give you time to decompress. It is truly masterful writing and I'm glad to have gotten to experience it!

Saving Myles starts off with a situation that no parent ever wants to be in: the struggle of what are the right steps to take to help your child who has strayed onto a bad path. The story that unfolds is one of an estranged family who find themselves in a situation where it seems that everyone is exploiting them for their own ends. It was both agonizing and frustrating, I thought the author did a great job setting up the difficult situation that Wade and Fiona found themselves in. I was literally on the edge of my seat and the story kept me reading late into the night just to see what was going to happen next.

Former banker and money laundering expert Carl Vonderau gives crime fiction readers the benefit of his extensive knowledge in his latest thriller, Saving Myles, scheduled for release by Oceanview in mid-August. Wade and Fiona Bosworth have done everything they know to do to get their teenaged son Myles away from drugs and a crowd of young adults who use them. They finally borrow heavily to send him to a treatment center for a year. Upon his return, he seems changed but in a few months he slips across the border into Mexico to buy illicit pharmaceuticals, where he is kidnapped.

The Bosworths are deeply in debt and have no recourse but to accept the offer of a loan from Fiona’s boss Andre. Wade soon learns that the loan has strings--Wade has to leave his senior officer position at a large bank to work for Andre. As well as the nonprofit where Fiona works, Andre runs a small bank with a sketchy vibe; Wade soon realizes Andre is seeking to boost his bank’s standing in the San Diego region via Wade’s previously impeccable reputation.

From the first page I was pulled into the story, which is written in taut, hard-driving prose that slowly reveals just how dire the predicament of the Bosworths is. By the book’s midpoint the pace slows but it does not stop while Fiona and Ward search for a way out of an apparently hopeless situation.

The drug cartel as a theme in crime fiction has been done and overdone but the focus here is a little different, centering on their attempts to rehabilitate themselves into superficial respectability. It reminded me of that section of The Godfather in which the Corleones strategize to turn the family legal. Consequently parts of the plot are all too predictable while other sections are novel. The greater spotlight is on Fiona and Ward, who want the best for their son but do not agree on how to achieve it. The characterization of sometimes unlikable people in crisis is excellent.

I found the detail surrounding money laundering exceptional. Financial skullduggery is not highlighted often in crime fiction which is unfortunate, as it’s an area with a lot of felonious potential. Granted, watching paper and electrons move around is not as cinematic as car chases and shootouts but Vonderau explains the process of money laundering and the implications clearly, which gives the criminal activity punch. I really liked this one. Recommended.

Saving Myles is an interesting book mainly dealing with family issues and demonstrates just how far parents are willing to go to protect their children. There are many interwoven plots — a teenager with drug problems, teenage angst and love, kidnapping, murders and suspicious deaths, money laundering and FBI and DEA investigations. The writing is unusual and descriptive at times — “maritime layer that fogged over the street.” The action takes place in Southern California and Tijuana and the novel is infused with a plethora of action sure to keep the reader involved.

I thank NetGalley and Oceanview Publishing for the opportunity to read and review this novel prior to publication.

Saving Myles by Carl Vonderau is twisty and unpredictable. The action never ceases. Myles, the son of a successful banker and philanthropic mother, is a typical hard-headed teen who knows no boundaries. Soon enough, his behavior leads to tragedy and disaster. His family is roped into unsavory and duplicitous behavior that never ends.
Saving Myles is a rollercoaster ride that increases the reader's tension and willingness to turn the pages while hoping that Myles and his family escape the tyranny resulting from a single act of poor judgment.
Saving Myles is a sure-fire winner that should be read by all who enjoy a great story with unforeseeable consequences.