A teenage girl’s abduction uncovers a dangerous secret in the breathtaking thriller, Stolen Secrets by S.F. Baumgartner. A little more than a decade ago, Special Agent Charlie O’Rourke and his wife adopted Jamie Beth after her foster parents died in strange circumstances. When Jamie Beth’s best friend is kidnapped at school, Charlie’s idyllic family life begins to unravel. Additionally, the Ghost, a powerful criminal now in protective custody, appears to know something related to the abduction. Then Jamie Beth and another student disappear. Everything indicates a deadly enemy from the past has resurfaced to wreak vengeance. With few clues and fewer leads to his daughter and her friend, Charlie must work with a criminal element to uncover the truth. Can they find the students before it is too late?

Complete with suspense, thrilling action, and romance, Stolen Secrets by S.F. Baumgartner is the seventh book in the exciting Mirror Estate series. Because it is part of an intense series, there are multiple characters with a history related to the protagonist and the antagonist. Ms. Baumgartner has done a commendable job of adding family trees to explain each person’s connection and how they relate to one another at the beginning of the book. Thoughtfully portrayed, each character easily integrates into the storyline. Their past operations are a link to this story, defining the plot's focus. It is intense from the very start and continues moving at a fast pace until the end, stopping on a perfect segue for a sequel. This is a riveting book that will delight fans of thrillers with a Christian perspective.

Stolen Secrets pulls you in right from the start, beginning two years before the start of the book. Charlie and his wife want a child, and they’re allowed to adopt a young girl from an Italian convent. It turns out that the little girl is the daughter of a high-value asset whose foster parents have just met an unfortunate end, and it’s his job to keep her safe. But years later, Jamie’s best friend is mistakenly kidnapped, and the past has somehow caught up with them all. S.F. Baumgartner has crafted a fast-paced thriller that makes effective use of time to ramp up the tension. Each chapter reveals another thread that is not so easily unraveled by the reader or the characters.

One of the hallmarks of a good mystery is that it takes time to get the whole picture before the mystery is revealed, and S.F. Baumgartner does this really well. Each layer uncovered in Stolen Secrets reveals more government agencies, covert agents, and mistaken identities, both good and bad, until you’re sure all of them are involved. This intricate game of cat and mouse isn’t the only thing that pushes the story forward, but also the backstories of many of the characters involved. Each new fact compelled me to keep reading, desperate to know what would happen or what would be revealed next, until the story ended. This was a perfect high-tension read full of twists and turns that never seemed to end.