INTRODUCING KATIE ROSE: The author, in the voice of 70ish widower, retired newspaperman and neighborhood grouch Jake Thomas, introduces us to Katie Rose Fowler, a bouncy little eight-year-old neighbor girl who intrudes into his otherwise quiet life one fateful day. At first she aggravated the grumpy old man, and eventually over a period of years she captured his heart. When she is abducted from a nearby house on his street while babysitting at the age of 15, Jake, in a race to rescue her, goes from a prime suspect to leading his own investigation. With help from a local newsman and some usual allies, Jake reignites the fire of an earlier incarnation as a veteran bulldog reporter to identify and find the kidnapper before Katie Rose comes to serious harm. The strong bond formed over those years pays off just when it appears that the mystery of her disappearance, her whereabouts and the identity of her abductor seems unsolvable. (The first book in a seven-part series.)