'The Wrong Girl' by Hank Phillippi Ryan; Forge ($24.99)

Adoptions build families and, despite problems, foster care can be a safe haven for children in transition to a new home. But greed can turn even the best of intentions into a scam and the foster care system is fraught with problems, as newspaper headlines prove.

Hank Phillippi Ryan navigates the sometimes perilous issues of adoption and foster care in "The Wrong Girl," her second compelling novel about Boston newspaper reporter Jane Ryland. A strong plot, realistic characters and a timely theme combine for a suspenseful story that never stoops to gratuitous violence.

Once a highly respected investigative journalist for a Boston TV station, Jane now works as a newspaper reporter. She is intrigued - and a little leery - when former colleague Tucker Cameron asks her to investigate a private adoption agency. Tucker, adopted as a baby, thought that the Brannigan Family and Children Services had found her birth mother. Although she had a poignant meeting with the woman, both Tucker and her presumed birth mother are convinced that they are not related. How many other adoptees and birth mothers have paid the agency to be reunited?

Across town, Det. Jake Brogan and his partner, Det. Paul DeLuca, investigate the murder of a young woman in her apartment. The homicide appears to be a fatal case of domestic violence. Two young children are unharmed in another room and are immediately put into foster care. But an empty cradle and other evidence leads Jake to suspect that another child, possibly an infant, also stayed in the apartment and is now missing. Assigned to cover the homicide, Jane follows a trail that continues to intersect with Jake's investigation. All roads lead back to the Brannigan agency as the two uncover a lucrative scheme that goes back decades.

Ryan follows the high standards she set when she introduced Jane and Jake in last year's award-winning "The Other Woman." While she occasionally relies too much on coincidences, Ryan delivers a gripping story full of suspense in "The Wrong Girl." Ryan, who also has a four-novel series about Boston TV reporter Charlie McNally, is careful to show that greed, ambition and a small taste of power can make ordinary people, such as those who run Brannigan, ignore their moral code, a theme anyone who watched "Breaking Bad" will understand.

Jane continues to rebuild her career. She comes to an appreciation of the power of newspapers, but worries about cutbacks and layoffs. Ryan wisely keeps the growing affection between Jane and Jake unrequited. They know that a romance between a detective and a police reporter would harm both their careers. For now, they are choosing work over romance, but that doesn't stop their deep friendship or the simmering sexual tension that enhances rather than stalls the plot.

Ryan's insider's view of the media comes from her own experience as a broadcast investigative reporter in Boston where she has earned 28 Emmys and 12 Edward R. Murrow awards for her work. Now she is collecting well-earned awards for her fiction writing.