Andrew Gross - The Blue Zone

Everything in Kate Raab's life seems perfect. She has an amazing family, an invigorating job straight out of college, and a boyfriend she adores. Then a phone call changes everything:
Her father, a successful businessman, a man she has always trusted and admired, is in trouble with the law. He's innocent, he insists, but the only way out is this: his testimony against his accomplices and the immediate placement of the family deep inside the Witness Protection Program.
... Now, a year later, her worst fears have been realized: Kate's father suddenly disappears--into what the WITSEC agency calls "the blue zone"--and someone very important to him is found brutally murdered. ...

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I've never read a book by Andrew Gross before so this was the first time for me and I actually thought this is a new author. I was surprised to read he'd published a few books before.
However, I liked the plot:
The family Raab is tight and torn apart after Ben Raab, the father, admits to different accusations by the FBI. His confession and plans to testify in court against the Colombian drug cartel puts him and the family into a dangerous position and therefore into the Witness Protection Program. The family has to vanish and never come back to it's old life.
Kate, the oldest daughter though, decides to not run away from her life and boyfriend Greg. Realising later on, she's never going to see her family again she takes on her own life and marries Greg.

14 month later she receives a surprising visit by the FBI: her father has vanished and left a trail to the murder of his case agent.
Feeling the FBI hides information from her Kate begins to investigate a bit and soon discovers that the special relationship she once had with her father isn't as true as she'd always believed.
Who is the man she'd always believed to be her hero ? Why did he do what he did ?

Kate needs answers and tries to find her family which causes her mother's life. From there on Kate's life is a roller coaster of fear. Understanding what she is dealing with Kate has to realize she is stuck between her father and the cartel. Who is right and who is wrong and what did her mother plan to tell her when she got shot ?

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Although I didn't like the all too predictable ending I enjoyed reading The Blue Zone.
The main character Kate isn't very memorable from my point of view but I really liked her husband Greg as a minor role. The Blue Zone is a nice holiday-beach read: not too demanding and quite short.

Rating:
Visit Andrew Gross.

Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: William Morrow; 1 edition (April 13, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0061143405
ISBN-13: 978-0739480731