The Missing Place

Two women from opposite ends of the country, and the socioeconomic spectrum, join forces in a desperate race to discover what happened to their missing oil rig worker sons in this moving mystery from Edgar-finalist Littlefield (House of Glass). Until Colleen Mitchell, the superficial wife of an attorney living in a pricey Boston suburb, and Shay Capparelli, a financially strapped California single mom and spitfire, meet in desolate Lawton, N.Dak., each believes her son to be the only one missing, an error neither stonewalling local police nor the boys’ safety-be-damned employer Hunter-Cole Energy chooses to correct. Combining their complementary skills—Shay’s doggedness, Colleen’s diplomacy—the mothers start to make some headway, but that may not be enough to outmaneuver the forces trying to stymie them (or to overcome their simmering mutual distrust). While some plot twists aren’t so surprising, Littlefield maximizes the emotional impact of her character-driven cautionary tale. Agent: Barbara Poelle, Irene Goodman Literary Agency. (Oct.)