Child’s abduction focus of ‘City of the Sun’

  Screenwriter David Levien displays versatility in crafting an engrossing novel about the search for an abducted child.
  Levien's “City of the Sun” takes the reader into the nightmare of a couple trying to find their 12-year-old son who disappeared while on his paper route 14 months earlier.
  Paul and Carol Gabriel hire private investigator Frank Behr, a former cop, who at first refuses to take the case because he sees no hope of finding their son, Jamie.
  Behr, a huge man with a troubled past, changes his mind and bonds with Paul Gabriel, who insists on joining the hunt. Levien manages to avoid cliches in his creation of Behr, a man with a lot of rough edges in his personality
  The search takes the two men to Mexico where they discover the source of the evil. The book’s conclusion is violent and powerful.
  Levien, who writes effectively in the present tense, co-wrote such screenplays as “Ocean’s Thirteen” and “Runaway Jury.”