Going Dark

Amelia Ashley, a college student and social media influencer, goes mysteriously missing while on vacation in Italy with her photographer boyfriend Josh Reuter in this absorbing mystery by de la Cruz (the Blue Bloods series). After the two argued at the end of their trip, an angry Josh returned home to California without Amelia, only to be implicated when she was declared missing. Following a media frenzy—spearheaded by her 1.5 million Instagram followers making the hashtag #WhereIsAmeliaAshley go viral—one of Amelia’s friends hires hacker Harper Delgado to gain access to Amelia’s online information. Instead of clarity, however, Harper unearths more questions about Amelia’s everyday life and the reality of her relationship with Josh. Through social media posts, private diary entries, and firsthand accounts, Harper unravels the mystery while bringing to light a seemingly connected past disappearance. De la Cruz combines familiar thriller beats with a socially conscious narrative to deliver a breakneck story that outpaces its ripped-from-the-headlines influences to establish its own labyrinthine twists. This timely work gratifyingly interrogates the core question of what determines whose disappearance gets taken seriously and whose gets ignored. Amelia and Josh cue as white; Harper is brown-skinned. Ages 14–up. (Jan.)