Colleen has left her home and husband in Massachusetts and is flying to North Dakota. Her son, Paul, hasn't been heard from in nine days. THE MISSING PLACE is going to pull you in right from the very first page and never let you go. Filled with mystery, suspense, and heart break I found myself holding my breath waiting for something to completely break this poor mother. She is scared, worried, and at her wits end trying to figure out what happened to her son. My heart broke for her.
Once Colleen gets to North Dakota she meets Shay, the mother of the other missing boy Taylor. Both women are frantic and frustrated with the answers they are getting from the company the boys are working for. They are getting the run around from them and decide to take matters into their own hands. When they start digging around, they realize the oil company has been involved in several accidents and injuries that have been covered up. They start to wonder if the company did something to their boys to keep them quiet. There's also a question as to whether the boys just took off, since the work is hard and some men just can't cut it.
Told in a different way to the usual crime and mystery novels, it's narrated from the perspectives of three people only: the two mothers and another boy named T.L., which means that we don't see any events from the police point of view. Because of this I felt that we get a more personal and emotionally charged story. What would you do, as a parent, if your child took a job in another state and then disappeared?
I enjoyed reading THE MISSING PLACE. I liked the mystery element and I liked the interaction between uptight Colleen and laid back Shay. I'll look for the rest of Sophie Littlefield's books based on how much I loved THE MISSING PLACE. Once I started reading, I was so invested in these two moms that I was turning the pages like a mad woman. I just had to know what happened to these two boys. Sophie Littlefield doesn't pull any punches in her writing. Brutal and honest, this is a disturbing tale of what a mother will do to protect her child. As a mother myself, I can not imagine what I would feel like if this was my child that had gone missing.
Set against the backdrop of North Dakotaβs oil boom, two
very different mothers form an uneasy alliance to find
their
missing sons in this heartrending and suspenseful novel
from
the Edgar Awardβnominated author of Garden of
Stones.The booming North Dakota oil business
is
spawning βman camps,β shantytowns full of men hired to
work
on the rigs, in towns without enough housing to
accommodate
them. In such twilight spaces, itβs easy for a person to
vanish. And when two young men in their first year on the
job disappear without a trace, only their mothers believe
thereβs hope of finding them. Despite reassurances that
the
police are on the case, the two women think the oil
company
is covering up the disappearancesβand maybe something
more. Colleen, used to her decorous life in a
wealthy Massachusetts suburb, is determined to find her
son.
And hard-bitten Shay, from the wrong side of the
California
tracks, is the only person in town even willing to deal
with
herβbecause sheβs on the same mission. Overtaxed by worry,
exhaustion, and fear, these two unlikely partners question
each otherβs methods and motivations, but must work
together
against the town of strangers if they want any chance of
finding their lost boys. But what they uncover could
destroy
them both... Sure to please fans of Sandra Brown
and
Gillian Flynn, The Missing Place is a moving
chronicle of survival, determination, and powerful bonds
forged in the face of adversity.
No excerpt available.
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