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 Dakota’s oil boom, two
very different mothers form an uneasy alliance to find
their
missing sons in this heartrending and suspenseful novel
from
the Edgar Award–nominated author of Garden of
Stones.
The booming North Dakota oil business
is
spawning “man camps,” shantytowns full of men hired to
work
on the rigs, in towns without enough housing to
accommodate
them. In such twilight spaces, it’s 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
there’s hope of finding them. Despite reassurances that
the
police are on the case, the two women think the oil
company
is covering up the disappearances—and 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
her—because she’s on the same mission. Overtaxed by worry,
exhaustion, and fear, these two unlikely partners question
each other’s 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.