Showing Page One: Vanished by Nancy Barr

A dusty old scrapbook in a used bookstore finds its way into the hands of Robin Hamilton, small-town newspaper reporter, who is taking a day off in the tiny tourist town of Copper Harbor, Michigan. The frayed scrapbook's first page holds a photo of Mary Jo Quinn with the dates, 1960-1974. The golden brown eyes from the picture seem to peer into Robin's soul, prodding her to read the newspaper clippings inside that describe the young girl's disappearance on her last day of school. It rocked the small community of Houghton in '74. As Robin shares her discovery, she learns of the disappearance of another girl in Ishpeming, five years later in '79, same age, same time of year, same odd occurrence, vanished without a trace. Robin's mind begins to wonder about these similarities. Girls sometimes run away, the local residents conclude, but when Robin's editor recalls the disappearance of yet another young girl in yet another town of Michigan's Upper Peninsula in 1993, Robin is powerless to ignore the possibility that these disappearances were not runaway girls at all, but abductions and possibly murders. Through relentless inquiries, it appears that five young girls went missing in the U.P. over a thirty-year period. Robin investigates the cases for the newspaper and uncovers disturbing facts and another girl's disappearance after a mysterious intruder warns Hamilton to mind her own business. Racing to reveal a perpetrator, our heroine finds herself in harm's way with unfathomable evil.