First published 2020
Eight-year-old Sophia and eleven-year-old Alyona disappear one August afternoon from the shores of Russia's Kamchatka peninsula. The police find no trace of them. Their vanishing sends ripples through the tight community, touching a witness who saw them last, a neighbor who heard the news, a detective working the case, and a mother grappling with loss. Over the following year, these women navigate their fears while accusations turn toward outsiders in a region where ethnic tensions run deep. The search for answers unfolds against Kamchatka's dramatic landscape of forests, tundra, volcanoes, and seas that stretch toward Japan and Alaska. As the investigation stalls, each woman must confront how the sisters' disappearance has changed her understanding of safety, family, and belonging in this remote corner of Russia.
Genres: suspense, mystery, crime, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: missing-persons, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Kamchatka, Russia
Period: 21st-century
272 pages · Paperback · Vintage