The Missing Person

In an unusual mystery without a conventional hero or villain, Tobin ( The Ransom ) movingly depicts the lives of ordinary peple who suddenly find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. One day in 1973, Janine Smith, a college dropout, disappears from her hometown of Beacon, N.Y. When the local police investigation stalls, Willy Buchanan, Janine's fiance and a semi-employed construction worker, follows a stolen-credit card trail first to New Orleans and then through Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. After his search proves fruitless, he returns home and tries to resume his life--until 10 years later, when the death of Janine's brother from leukemia offers new clues which prompt him to travel to Los Angeles and renew his search. Adroit shifts of point of view keep the reader off-balance, successfully withholding the motivation for Janine's disappearance until the end. Tobin ( The Ransom ) makes the most of plot, character and the warmly evoked Hudson Valley setting in this satisfying, atypical mystery. (July)