She Treads Softly: Last Seen

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Last Seen

Last Seen by Rick Mofina
MIRA Books: 2/27/18
eBook review copy; 544 pages
ISBN-14: 9780778310990

Last Seen by Rick Mofina is a highly recommended police procedural where everyone character and motives are in question and there is no clear suspect.

Cal and Faith Hudson have taken their nine-year-old son, Gage, to the carnival where Gage is determined to go through The Chambers of Dread. Gage and his friends have all dared each other to go through the horror house, so he is excited. As the family goes through the horror house, they get separated at the end and all exit individually - but Gage doesn't come out. Cal and Faith immediately start looking for Gage and ask the carnival ride manager to help. Finally, with Gage nowhere in sight, they call the police and the search begins in earnest to find the missing child.

But, along with the look into the carnival employees, and other directions, the investigation also begins to look in earnest at Cal and Faith. As with most families, there are buried secrets in the Hudson's marriage. Additionally, Cal is a crime reported for a large Chicago newspaper, which begs the question did someone Cal write about launch into a vendetta against him, targeting his son? And who is the strange man with whom Faith seems to have a private connection. Can any family survive their secrets exposed? And can Gage be found before time runs out?

Mofina has written a tense, evenly paced procedural here where the interviews of the suspects and the parents are all presented along with the new evidence revealed and the leads detectives and the FBI follow. We know inside evidence and suspicious characters as the investigation continues. The novel follows the investigation by the day. The thing is that everyone is suspect here. Cal and Faith have secrets along with other people.

This is a perfect choice for readers who love procedurals. Mofina keeps the tension high and the pace moves quickly as more and more information is uncovered.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of MIRA Books.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.