How Quickly She Disappears
The Dry meets Silence of the Lambs in this intoxicating tale of literary suspense set in the relentless Alaskan landscape about madness and obsession, loneliness and grief, and the ferocious bonds of family …
It’s 1941 in small-town Alaska and Elisabeth Pfautz is alone. She’s living far from home, struggling through an unhappy marriage, and she spends her days tutoring her precocious young daughter. Elisabeth’s twin sister disappeared without a trace twenty years earlier, and Elisabeth’s life has never recovered. Cryptic visions of her sister haunt her dreams, and Elisabeth’s crushing loneliness grows more intense by the day. But through it all, she clings to one belief: That her sister is still alive, and that they’ll be reunited one day.
And that day may be coming soon. Elisabeth’s world is upended when Alfred Seidel — an enigmatic German bush pilot — arrives in town and murders a local man in cold blood. Sitting in his cell in the wake of his crime, Alfred refuses to speak to anyone except for Elisabeth. He has something to tell her: He knows exactly what happened to her long-missing sister, but he’ll reveal this truth only if Elisabeth fulfills three requests.
Increasingly isolated from her neighbors and imprisoned by the bitter cold and her own obsession, Elisabeth lets herself slip deeper into Alfred’s web. A tenuous friendship forms between them, even as Elisabeth struggles to understand Alfred’s game and what he’s after.
But if it means she’ll get answers, she’s willing to play by his rules. She’s ready to sacrifice whatever it takes to be reunited with her sister, even if it means putting herself — and her family — in mortal danger.
Title: How Quickly She Disappears
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Author: Raymond Fleischmann
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Berkley
Publishing Date: January 14, 2020
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1984805177
ISBN-13: 978-1984805171
My Review
Cunningly manipulative!
This novel had an eery undertone once it took off. Firstly, it takes place in a tiny remote Alaskan village that relies on plane deliveries for precious supplies not readily available. Secondly, this happens during the time in 1941, before the US military had any presence in the area and most of the inhabitants there were descendants of early tribes, speaking the native tongue. For any family to move there to integrate and teach at the schoolhouse would be a challenging endeavor.
Elisabeth, her husband, and their daughter moved into this area for a teaching position. Elisabeth, a well-accomplished woman herself, home educates their gifted daughter while her husband teaches at the local school. Marriage life is rocky and tested at times by their current situation.
One day, an expected delivery takes Elisabeth to the airfield where she does not find the usual pilot on the route, but a different man, Alfred. He is having issues with his plane and asks Elisabeth if he could spend the night and work on it the next day. Since her house is the largest in town with an open 'guest room', she lets him crash the night despite her husband being out of town for work. This Alfred is a peculiar man of German descent and likes to think he shares much in common with Elisabeth's family having a German last name as well.
After Alfred stayed another night, he had outrun his welcome in Elisabeth's home, as she was increasingly becoming uncomfortable with it, and that not without reason! A neighbor friend has been found dead, killed by Alfred and he only wants to talk to Elisabeth. He claims he knows about her sister's disappearance twenty years prior.
Elisabeth has been haunted all those years about the loss of her sister, a cold case by now. So, when Alfred tells her he wants three things from her in exchange for information leading to the whereabouts of her sister, she begins visiting him at the prison wresting with her good conscience.
In the meantime, her home life is breaking down more than where it was already heading. With Elisabeth's daughter starting to act out, she is walking a narrow line between investigating the past at the cost of keeping her family together.
When one of Alfred's requests is for Elisabeth's daughter to visit him alone at the prison, she stands between the last clue to hold her sister in her arms again and losing her daughter permanently as the plot unfolds into a dangerous game of cat and mouse.
***
This novel took some twisted turns and the entire time more creepy vibes kept oozing in. Alfred's character is eccentric and portrays a dominance capable of violence and manipulation while cunningly luring his prey into his net. Exactly the kind of character I don't like and my 'stay away' meter is pegged by.
Throughout the story, Elisabeth is having flashbacks from her childhood and her sister's rebellious ways...an aspect that mirrors her daughters' and feeds into the plot along the way. Ultimately, Elisabeth is alone in solving the case as Alfred told her not to go to the police but she did initially anyway. A mistake she pays for later on and from there has to outsmart them all. The way this novel ended is my favorite part.
If you enjoy plots based on twisted mind games, then this might be your book. If domestic violence is a trigger for you, then keep in mind that it has a bit of that vibe and an unexpected scene of 'controlling' violently in it. I am very sensitive to this matter myself, but I was ok to read through it and I ultimately really liked this novel for being quite different.
Happy Reading!
I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
All opinions are my own.
Thank you.
