Prepare for an adrenaline-fueled ride through a dark and treacherous world when Detective Emilia Cruz investigates Mexico’s most notorious true crime. “Astounding” – Nightstand Reviews

Emilia finds herself in Mexico City, part of a national task force examining the forced disappearance of 43 college students from a city in central Mexico. Despite its high profile, the task force is a paper exercise to cover somebody's political you-know-what. Nobody expects to find out how the 43 students disappeared. Nobody expects to make an arrest. As the task force heads to the scene of the crime, a supposedly trustworthy diplomat offers Emilia $50,000 to spike the investigation. The offer raises profound questions of loyalty, conscience, and her future as an honest cop. Most importantly, will her personal vendetta against the shadowy criminal El Acólito cloud her judgment? 43 MISSING is a gripping police drama based on the true events of September 2014, when 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College were the victims of a mass kidnapping from Iguala, Guerrero. Carmen Amato's masterful storytelling solves the crime, which in real life remains shrouded in mystery.

2019 & 2020 Poison Cup award, Outstanding Series – CrimeMasters of America Finalist, Best Investigator of 2017 – Silver Falchion Award

“A thrilling series” – National Public Radio Carmen

Amato's 30-year career as a CIA intelligence officer with counterdrug experience gives readers authentic and thrilling mystery crime fiction loaded with danger and deception. Fans of police procedural murder mystery series by Ian Rankin, Jo Nesbo, Ann Cleeves, and Peter May, as well as the Department Q novels and Don Winslow's cartel and border thrillers set in Mexico, will be captivated by the intricate plots, pulse-pounding suspense, and exotic locations of Detective Emilia Cruz's world. She takes on the real and complex issues of Mexican cartels, corruption, and social inequality portrayed in Netflix's "Narcos."