During a trip to China, Paul and Christine experience the nightmare of every parent: their four year old son is kidnapped. They are reunited after a few hours but the kidnappers, very powerful people in today's China with close contacts to the police, dearly want the child back. The only safe place for the family is the US embassy in Beijing, but they are two thousand miles away, with the police searching franticly for them, and all airports, train stations and major roads under surveillance. They'll have no chance without help from strangers, but who will be willing to risk their lives for them? 

Whom can they trust?

The Far Side of the Night is a powerful, transporting novel about the struggle to maintain humanity in an impossible situation.