Furious: Faith McMann, No. 1

Schoolteacher Faith McCann, the heroine of this searing first in a new crime series from Ragan (Evil Never Dies), returns one afternoon to her Sacramento, Calif., home to discover the members of her family bound and gagged: her husband, Craig, and their children, 10-year-old Lara and nine-year-old Hudson. The bad guys take the kids, slit Craig’s throat, and leave Faith for dead after a vicious beating. After a stint in a drug-induced coma and intensive care, Faith finds new purpose in searching for Lara and Hudson and their captors. Frustrated by the slowness of the official investigation, Faith assaults a police detective and winds up in court-mandated anger control classes, where under the sobriquet “Furious” she meets “Rage” and “Beast.” Rage and Beast become unlikely allies in her effort to penetrate the world of human trafficking, the evils of which are highlighted in chapters revealing what happened to Lara and Hudson. Readers with strong stomachs will eagerly await the next installment. (Mar.)