Sandy Shortt, OCD sufferer and tall person with a complex, runs a missing persons agency. She’s been obsessed with missing people and things since she was 10, and a neighbor girl disappeared, never to be heard from again. She has devoted her life to tracking down the missing, from socks to family members of desperate people. Sandy keeps everyone in her life at arm’s distance, worried that they’ll judge her for her obsessions, or that they’ll disappear on her.
Since childhood, Sandy’s had a theory that the unfindable things that go missing all go to the same place – that they’re being collected somewhere. When she herself (inevitably? ironically?) goes missing while searching for the brother (Donal) of a client (Jack), she finds out she’s right. There are whole villages of people who’ve been missing for years, running shops with other people’s possessions that just show up in the woods. Sandy quickly becomes a reluctant celebrity when people find out that she knows many of them, knows their stories and histories, and has met their families. They want to know what’s been going on in the regular world since they disappeared, and if Sandy can somehow lead them back.
It’s a cool concept, and I liked the book, but I wanted more! The story stands on its own just fine, but I wanted to know where they were, why such a place existed, how things/people were chosen to get lost, etc. Instead, we get a fairly high-level view of this world, with the lost residents (they call the place simply “Here”) just saying “we don’t know why this happens, it just is,” and no explanations.
The writing is good, and Ahern has given herself the interesting challenge of making her heroine an unlikeable person who knows she’s unlikeable. Sandy is driven and obsessed, doesn’t really like people all that much, and doesn’t really care who knows it. When she disappears, her client Jack starts to hunt for her, wanting her to find his brother, and finds that Sandy has no real friends, and her family doesn’t seem worried. But the story stays compelling, and it’s a quick read.
The ending seemed a bit abrupt, and again, I wanted more. It almost feels like I liked the writing and the concept better than I liked the final product. The cover tells me it’s an international bestseller, though, so what do I know?
