Girl Jacked by Christopher Greyson

When Jack Stratton returns home after his wartime service, he is at loose ends.  He decides to become a policeman which is the closest occupation to the skills he learned in the military.  He is doing well and taking all the training he can get but he is low man on the totem pole and most of the crimes he investigates are traffic related or breaking up fights in bars or at homes.  Underneath the calm exterior though, Jack is a mess.  He joined the service with his best friend, Chandler who he considered a brother after sharing a foster home for several years.  Chandler did not make it home and Jack blames himself.  He bounces from woman to woman, drinks too much and has not made it over to see Aunt Hattie,  Michelle and Replacement, the woman who raised him and Chandler and his sisters.

So Jack is shocked when Replacement shows up at his apartment one morning.  She informs him that Michelle is missing and they need Jack's help to find her.  Apparently, according to the police, Michelle left her promising college career to suddenly transfer to the West Coast and a university there.  Jack is hesitant to look for Michelle, knowing that this will bring him face to face with the abandonment he has committed with her family.  But as he remembers his childhood, he finally agrees to take it on.

Replacement is determined to help although she has no police experience.  She does have computer skills which Jack lacks and has found out that the West Coast university has no record of Michelle actually getting there and attending classes.  It's not possible that Michelle has just dropped out since her education was a hard fought opportunity she would never give up.  Can Jack and Replacement find Michelle?

This is the first in a series of detective novels featuring Jack and his sidekick, his former foster sister.  Jack is a troubled soul, the son of a prostitute who abandoned him one day when he was seven after telling him he didn't know jack.  His time with Aunt Hattie and his foster brother and sisters helped him join society and although he was later adopted, he knows he has a huge debt to pay to that first foster family.  Replacement was the bratty kid sister back then but has grown up into a woman who knows her own mind and has an ambiguous relationship with Jack.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.