First published 2023
Andrea Lankford spent twelve years as a National Park Service law enforcement ranger, leading search and rescue operations from Yosemite to the Grand Canyon. She left the agency frustrated with its bureaucratic obstacles. Twenty years later, she discovers three young men have disappeared along the Pacific Crest Trail, the 2,650-mile route that Cheryl Strayed made famous in Wild. No one has found them. The mystery consumes her. Lankford enters the strange world of missing person Facebook groups and assembles an unlikely team of amateur investigators: a grieving mother, a retired pharmacy manager, and a government mapmaker who tracks terrorists. Together they pursue kidnappers and murderers, probe a dangerous cult, and rescue a threatened psychic. Their search becomes a grueling test of mind and body, but their efforts produce unexpected results that lead them to shocking discoveries.
Genres: adventure, suspense, mystery, thriller
Vibes: emotional, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: amateur-detective, investigation
Setting: Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Pacific Crest Trail
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
352 pages · Hardcover · Grand Central Publishing