Missing by Kelley Armstrong is a suspenseful thriller with a dash of romance.

A small, Canadian town. Missing teenagers. Scary, dark forests. A murderous villain. Mysteries galore.

Kelley Armstrong is great at making creepy books, and this one was a great read. It it a bit slow, but once you get into the groove it's hard to put down. It has the punch of your average horror/thriller/suspense novel, but it does add in a pinch of the YA trope - a dash of romance, things kind of just going to plan - yet it also adds in a lot of thought too. Rich versus poor, the differences in those classes, what money and wealth does to someone... It's very interesting.

I will say, the mystery was kind of dumb and I didn't like who was the big villain. The whole book was a great set up for a whole lot of nothing.

Worse part? Very, very graphic animal abuse and cruelty.

Two out of five stars. ( )

nice YA thriller. ( )

Missing is one of Kelley Armstrong's mysteries without a hint of the supernatural in them. That's okay. There's plenty of suspense anyway.

Winter Crane longs to escape her dying small town of Reeve's End, Kentucky, located within view of the Appalachians. Her mother died of cancer when she was seven, her father is an abusive alcoholic, and her older sister, Cady (Cadence), left last year after an incident that won't be explained for several chapters. Winter is a high school senior, so she's stuck living with her father in their shabby trailer. Rob Crane (Winter calls him 'Bert,' which he doesn't like), foils her attempts to keep the trailer tidy.
Winter spends as much time as she dares in a ramshackle old hunters' cabin in the nearby woods -- when she's not earning money for medical school by tutoring other high school students or working in the office of the only local doctor, Doc Southcott.

Winter's life becomes a lot more dangerous when she saves a stranger from the local feral dog pack. The boy's name is Lennon Later she meets his older brother, Jude. Jude is an accomplished musician. Just as a friend of mine hates the song 'Billy Boy, Billy Boy,' Jude hates that old Beatles song, 'Hey Jude'. That will be a plot point later.

In the meantime, Lennon's troubles become Winter's troubles. Someone very scary is after them. It could very well be because not all the Reeve's End teens who supposedly left town for greener pastures can be found. Besides her missing friend, Edie Greene, Winter starts to worry about Cady.

Winter has to dodge her father, get the truth out of Lennon, put up with Jude (who reminds me a lot of Derek from Armstrong's 'Darkest Powers' trilogy), and avoid becoming a victim of a serial killer -- if that's what they're facing.

Notes: Real life and pop culture references, in the order of their appearance:

Chapter 1 mentions: Lexington and Air Jordan shoes

Chapter 2 mention: Sleeping Beauty

Chapter 8 mention: Western Kentucky University

Chapter 9 mention: a popular urban legend, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, 'Irish twins'

Chapter 18 mentions: Los Angeles and New York

Chapter 25 mentions: [Washington] D.C.,and an IQ score [110, stated to be barely above average. I do wish Ms. Armstrong would use percentiles because scores may be ranked differently among different intelligence quotient tests]

Chapter 34 mention: Ale-8

Chapter 35 mention: Swahili

Chapter 38 mentions: Baptist church, United Methodist, Presbyterian, Calvary Temple, Catholic, 'Hey, Jude', Hershey's, and Mars bar

Chapter 39 mention: Rite Aid

Chapter 40 mentions: the [American] Civil War and the Peace Corps

Chapter 41 mentions: panic room, War and Peace, Les Misérables, Victorian novels, Penn, Cornell, Stanford, and Johns Hopkins

Chapter 43 mentions: Polaroids, flavored condoms, chocolate body paint, weed, and Ecstasy

Chapter 46 mention: Eugène Delacroix

Chapter 57 mentions: Cyrano and Christian

This is a Kelly Armstrong book, so don't expect the kind of happy ending where everyone gets out alive. If you're okay with that, you should enjoy this book. I liked the way Winter put clues together. I liked the way she let the boys' mom know she had no intention of whimpering in corner during the climax. (If that kind of female behavior in old books, movies, and TV shows annoys you too, I was born in 1954. I didn't really learn how to defend myself until I took an anti-rape course when I was in library school in 1977. Girls weren't taught how to fight. We were supposed to be protected by our menfolk. It was a big deal that Dad taught us a basic punch. That wasn't lady-like behavior, you know.) ( )

A story like Kelley Armstrong's latest novel, Missing, is exactly why I love to read. For a few hours, it allowed me to forget about the world as I was completely caught up in Winter's despair and her search for answers. Winter is a take-no-prisoners girl who knows what she wants and understands how the world operates. She is not a dreamer but a doer; while she has a horrible home life that forces her to take refuge in the woods, it is impossible to pity her because she does not want nor expect pity. Her matter-of-fact approach to life is refreshing in its lack of angst and emotional turbulence.

Winter is not out to save the world, but she does demand a world in which the rules are clear even if unfair. She also is fiercely loyal to those who are able to get past the barriers she has in place to protect her mind and heart. In fact, Winter may not be pitiable, but it is easy to sympathize with her. She is tough because that is the only way she can survive her father and the extremely poor, extremely small town she so desperately wants to flee. She has few friends and even fewer people upon whom she can rely. The fact that she is loyal to someone about whom she knows practically nothing makes sense when one realizes just how rare it is for her to find someone who believes in her and who makes her feel safe. Again, she is not someone to pity, but there are plenty of teens and adults who are just as lonely and alone and for whom a simple, genuine conversation means more than anything.

This is not a typical young adult novel in which the kids have to do everything because there is a noticeable absence of adults in their world. In fact, there are plenty of adult figures in Winter's life, and they fall along the spectrum of helpful to infuriatingly dismissive just as they do in real life. There are reliable adult figures in her life who help her and provide her with a safe refuge, just as there are adult characters who see her as nothing more than a troublemaker upsetting the status quo. In spite of the presence of these adults, Winter never attempts to uncover answers on her own without first seeking the help of the proper authorities. She contacts all the right people and makes all of the right decisions we teach our children when it comes to authority figures. The presence of adults makes Missing a refreshing break from the typical YA novel.

The story itself is intriguing. After Winter finds Lennon in the trees and drags him to safety, the story takes off and never lets up in its intensity. What she uncovers is sinister, but it is also creative in that it forces readers to acknowledge the disparity of the wealth gap and the innate disadvantages built into the system for those without adequate means. Winter's world is not Lennon's world, and her shock at just how different they are echoes the reader's shock. It would be easy to dismiss this disparity as purely fictional, but there is no doubt that communities like Reeve's End do exist and that for many people, hunting is not just a hobby but a means of survival.

As far as young adult novels go, Missing is a breath of fresh air. Not only does the story revolve around a fiercely independent character who knows when to ask for help, it is ground in reality. There are no fantasy elements to draw a reader's attention away from the poverty levels of Reeve's End. There is no love triangle to distract readers from the fact that Winter does not know how to wear a dress because she has never owned one. It is these little details, brutal in their meaning, that gives the story weight and prevents it from being just another flighty YA story but rather one which is entirely, chillingly plausible.

I love when Kelley Armstrong starts something completely new, because she invests it with energy and and an interest that sometimes seems to wane in later books of series that she writes. With this new young adult book, I feel she is back at her best level of writing.

Winter Crane, 17, spends much of her time in an abandoned shack around a mile from her family's trailer in Reeves End, Kentucky. Her father is an alcoholic who is not averse to punching her around. Ironically, it is safer for her in the woods, in spite of a pack of feral dogs and other threats.

As the story begins, Winter discovers a boy, Lennon Bishop, beat up and hanging from a tree, and she rescues him. But it seems like whoever attacked him is trying to finish the job. Lennon leaves the cabin so Winter won’t be in danger, but before she can figure out how to find him, his older brother Jude shows up looking for Lennon also. Reluctantly at first, they opt to work together to find out who is menacing Lennon and now Winter as well.

Their relationship grows as they get closer to solving the mystery of what is going on and who is behind it. But the danger to them grows also.

Evaluation: I enjoyed this a lot, and am disappointed it will not be a series! ( )