Gone, Baby, Gone (1998)

Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro search for four-year-old Amanda McCready in a case crowded with people claiming to act for a child's good. Lehane keeps asking what that claim commits them to, and who gets to make it. This later Kenzie and Gennaro novel is especially valuable for the conflict between a duty one can state clearly and an outcome one must live with. Avoid detailed summaries: its central moral argument depends on discovering the choices yourself.