Place Last Seen (2000) by Charlotte McGuinn Freeman

If you enjoy spending time hiking in the great outdoors, the setting of this book will appeal to you.
My blog friend Andrea recommended this book to me and I was lucky to find a copy of it in the library.  I love that it is a first novel - one of my favorite things!  And it was very well written and kept me up half the night last night to find out what happened.  But...it was not an easy story to read.

The story begins as Anne, a mother of two, realizes that her 6-year-old daughter with Down's syndrome, Maggie, has gone missing during a family hike in the Sierra Nevadas Desolation Wilderness Area in California.  Maggie was playing hide-and-seek with her ten-year-old brother, Luke, and never returns.  As Anne, her husband and Luke try desperately to find Maggie, they slowly come to the realization that they are going to need to call in professional help to find their daughter, and the novel is the chronicle of the ups and downs of the rescue operation.

I'm not going to say anymore so as not to spoil the ending, but the author takes her time to paint each and every character in this book in beautiful emotional detail.  She also compels the reader to think about loss, responsiblity, and contemplate how we handle the inevitable tragedies in life.  Finally, the contrast between the concern and focus of the search teams and the indifference of nature, and the barren but beautifully unusual setting make it an excellent read.  Thanks for the recommendation, Andrea.