Stolen
by Victor Malarek

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New York Tribune investigative reporter Matt Kozar returns to war-torn Ukraine on a personal mission – to help a heartbroken nurse find her baby girl stolen by Russian authorities. Within days of arriving in Kyiv, Kozar realizes he is onto something big. This is not just about the abduction of one child but a Machiavellian plot by Russian president Vladimir Putin to steal tens of thousands of Ukrainian children and transform them into obedient, flag-waving Russians. As the first year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rages on, Kozar comes across another insidious aspect of Putin’s Plan – one that sends him and his forensics-expert girlfriend, Mei Chen, on a chase from Kyiv to the “Millionaires’ Row” neighborhood of Toronto, Canada.

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Often described as a relentless, crusading investigative reporter, Victor Malarek began his career in journalism in 1970 as a crime reporter at The Montreal Star. In 1976, he joined The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper, where his work garnered an unprecedented three Michener Awards for meritorious public service journalism. In 1990, Malarek was recruited by CBC to co-host its current affairs show the fifth estate, where he was awarded a Gemini in 1997 as Canada’s top broadcast journalist, and a fourth Michener Award. A decade later, he joined CTV’s W5 as its senior investigative reporter where his documentaries won four Canadian Screen Awards. He retired in 2017. Malarek has reported from across Canada, the United States, Australia, and the European Union, as well as Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iran, Kurdistan, Ethiopia, Somalia, South-East Asia, and South America. He is the author of six non fiction books including his internationally acclaimed The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade, published in 2003 in a dozen countries and ten languages. His first book, Hey Malarek!, landed in bookstores in 1984. It documented his troubled and tumultuous childhood and teenage years in the grossly mismanaged Quebec child protection system. In 1989, it was made into a feature movie titled Malarek. A second feature movie, Target Number One, starring Josh Hartnett in the role of investigative reporter Malarek, was released in July 2020. It focussed on his investigation into a botched RCMP drug bust in Thailand that led to the wrongful seven-year imprisonment of Canadian Alain Olivier. In 2014, Malarek published his first fiction, Orphanage 41, with FriesenPress, followed by Wheat$haft in 2021, and Putin’s Assassin in 2024.

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