Defiant Hero by Suzanne Brockmann

"The United States refuses to negotiate with terrorists." Meg Moore remembered the warning from her job as a translator in a European embassy. Those same words will spell out a death sentence for her daughter and grandmother who have been kidnapped by a lethal group called the Extremists. Meg will do anything to meet their unspeakable demands; anything -- even kill -- to save her child.

This book offers a fresh and nuanced perspective into contemporary Chinese literature by presenting four authors and cultural bastards—Duo Duo, an underground seer-poet; Wang Shuo, a “hooligan” writer; Zhang Chengzhi, an old Red Guard and new cultural heretic; and Wang Xiaobo, a defiant yet melancholy chronicler of a dystopian modern world.