Last year I read one of the many Missing books by author David Paulides, and in my review I expressed my extreme disappointment in its research paper-like delivery which was about as entertaining as reading a public high school textbook. The cases mentioned could have been so much more intriguing if they were expressed less clinically and with more emotion, thus making the readers feel a connection to the victims and their families. I found what that book was missing in The Cold Vanish by Jon Billman. He closely details the disappearance of Jacob Gray, discussing what was going on in the young man’s life months before he went missing, up until the very end of the search.
Each person that goes missing in the United States, the world even, could have a book written about them. And if every book written about every missing person was done with as much care as was done by this author, the world over would care a great deal more about mysterious vanishings. There are entirely too many mysterious disappearances every year, and in reading this story you learn that missing persons are not documented and kept track of as thoroughly as you would expect that they should be. Search and rescue efforts are not always conducted in the best manner, national parks and forests are not always as cooperative as the family and friends of the missing would like them to be, and there is usually a lack of funding or a cap on it. Even when volunteer groups come to the aid of the missing, there can be a bunch of red tape to cross in allowing both persons and search and rescue dogs into the parks and forests if the government or landowners don’t want them there. It’s a big jurisdictional mess that makes you hope that no one you know ever goes missing.
I would read this book again, and any other missing persons book that is written in the same manner. You learn a lot from it and you get engrossed in the story. It is everything I like in a true life mystery.
Nonfiction and Nonsense 