Cold Realities

I just finished reading The Missing Place, by Sophie Littlefield, and I know it's going to stay with me. After so many decades of voracious reading, twenty-plus years in the book biz and a lifetime achievement award for book geekdom, I've read countless fabulously, well-written, totally engrossing books. I can't necessarily tell you exactly what it is about a given story that will ensure I keep thinking about it after turning the final page, but I always know when I'm reading one and The Missing Place is such a book. 

The cold, empty landscape of North Dakota is the perfect backdrop for Littlefield's tale that brings together two very different women and makes them unlikely allies. In fact, the harsh, desolate landscape of Lawton, ND is as much a character as rough-around-the-edges Shay and genteel, cashmere-clad Colleen. United by the pressing, panicked need to find their missing sons, Colleen and Shay navigate unfamiliar territory, dead ends and corporate bureaucracy as they search for their sons who disappeared from their jobs as workers on an oil rig. Littlefield has created complex characters that are at once sympathetic and bordering on unlikeable. Sharp, streetwise Shay is quick to judge and not shy about speaking her mind, and yet she insists Colleen share her tiny, rented motorhome moments after they meet. Privileged, well-heeled Colleen spends her first hours in Lawton in a daze, as if she cannot believe people live that way, and yet, she recognizes that Shay’s quick wit is the key to her survival.

As the women delve deeper into the mystery of their sons' disappearances, learn how far the oil company will go to keep secrets and discover their boys have secrets of their own, they begin to understand that their love for their sons and the need to discover the truth makes them far more alike than either is comfortable admitting. The Missing Place is not only a story of revenge and redemption, but also of confronting the realities of the self, especially those that may be at odds with what is seen in the mirror.