I read this book about thirty years ago, but had forgotten what a gritty, tense nail-biter it becomes in the last hundred pages or so. Mary McGarry Morris's VANISHED (1988) is the story of a kidnapping, but it is mostly a study of the odd, mismatched perpetrators, with a colorful cast of secondary characters, many of whom will make you wince and shudder in disbelief and revulsion.

Aubrey Wallace is forty-something, married with two sons, when he suddenly leaves his job on a road repair crew in Massachusetts, and runs off with fifteen year-old Dotty in a stolen truck. Soon after this, hungry and broke, Dotty walks into a big house, where she snatches a small toddler and a jar of dimes, and the unlikely trio go on the run for the next six years traveling up and down the east coast, stealing and selling stuff at flea markets. Definitely not living by their wits, because Aubrey is brain-damaged and nearly illiterate, and the beautiful Dotty is wildly bipolar with dreams of Hollywood stardom. The little girl, Canny, also becomes an important character in this grotesque picaresque. Aubrey, a gentle soul, grows to love her and is her primary caretaker, even as he is used and manipulated by the wildly unstable Dotty. When this unlikely "family" merges with another actual family, the white trash Hullers, their tale becomes ever darker, culminating in a tragic and explosive manner that will leave you gasping in horror. VANISHED is one hell of a good read Very very highly recommended.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER ( )