“I will not always be happy, but perhaps, if I’m lucky, I will be spared the agony of adding pain to the world.”
Books about missing persons are amongst the darkest and most absorbing in the literary world. There’s something so intriguing about someone disappearing off the face of the Earth that never fails to capture a reader’s attention. Where have they gone? What caused them to vanish? And what is their fate now? By having a character go missing, readers are able to have their protagonists walk in their shoes and peel away the secrets they had kept behind. From John Green to Stacy Willingham, if you love suspenseful mysteries and dark psychological thrillers, join us at What We Reading for the best books about people going missing!
Local Woman Missing – Mary Kubica
First up on our list of books about missing persons is Mary Kubica’s Local Woman Missing. Shelby Tebow is the first one to disappear. Soon after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, also vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into this once-peaceful community. After exhausting the search for the women, the case goes cold.
Then, eleven years on, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone clambers around to find out what happened to her, but not one person in this small community is prepared for what they’re about to discover. A smart and chilling exploration of domestic secrets, Local Woman Missing is one of the best missing person books for showing how far some people will go to keep the truth buried.
Then She Was Gone – Lisa Jewell
One of the most popular books by number one bestselling thriller author Lisa Jewell, Then She Was Gone introduces readers to Laurel, a mother whose teenage daughter, Ellie, disappeared ten years ago. Whilst working in a cafe in the present, a charismatic stranger named Floyd walks in and sweeps Laurel off her feet. Before long, the pair are going on dates, staying over at Floyd’s house and Laurel is soon introduced to his nine-year-old daughter, Poppy.
Poppy is adorable and precocious, but meeting her completely floors Laurel. Because Poppy is the spitting image of Ellie when she was that age. With all the unanswered questions about her daughter’s disappearance flooding back, she begins to question who still has secrets to hide.
Where’d You Go, Bernadette – Maria Semple
For those of you looking for one of the best mystery books about missing persons with more of a touch of comedy, look no further than Maria Semple’s bestselling Where’d You Go, Bernadette. When her daughter, Bee, claims a family trip to Antarctica as a reward for her perfect grades, her shut-in mother, Bernadette, throws herself into preparing for the adventure. But, after years of pressure, after a school fundraiser goes awry at her hands, Bernadette suddenly vanishes.
As her family are left to pick up the pieces, Bee begins to weave together an elaborate web of emails, invoices and memos that reveal a past her mother has kept hidden for years. Where’d You Go, Bernadette is a hugely entertaining story of family identity and a daughter’s love for her mother.
Paper Towns – John Green
Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the free-spirited and adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. But, when she pulls open a window and climbs into his life, dressed like a ninja and calling on him for an ingenious revenge campaign, he obediently follows.
After their all-nighter ends and a new morning arrives, Quentin arrives at school to discover that Margo, ever the enigma, has now become a mystery. He discovers a series of clues obviously left for him. However, the further he makes it down this disconnected path, the closer he gets to her, the less he begins to see the girl he thought he knew. One of the best contemporary YA books about missing persons, John Green’s Paper Towns is poignant, absorbing and profoundly moving.
The Searcher (Cal Hooper #1) – Tana French
Retired detective Cal Hooper moves to a rural, rugged village in Ireland. His plans are to fix up the small cottage he’s bought, walk the mountains and put his old police instincts to bed forever.
Then a local boy comes to him for help. His brother has gone missing and no one in the local community, not even the local police force, seems to care. And, once again, those restless police instincts begin to pull at Cal. Something is terribly wrong in his new community, and he must find out what it is, even if it brings trouble to his front door. Nominated for Best Mystery & Thriller in the 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards, The Searcher is the first entry in Tana French’s gripping Cal Hopper series.
Picture Me Gone – Meg Rosoff
Another one of the best YA missing person mystery books, Picture Me Gone is a 2013 story by Printz Award winner, Meg Rosoff.
Mila has an exceptional talent for reading a room – picking up on unspoken emotions and hidden facts from clues other people overlook. So, when her father’s best friend, Matthew, goes missing from his upstate New York home, Mila and her beloved dad travel from London to find him. She begins curating information about Matthew from his belongings and the wife, baby and dog he left behind, gradually piecing together the story everyone else has missed. But, just as she’s at her closest to solving the mystery, a shocking betrayal calls into question her trust in the one person she believed she could read most of all.
Six Years – Harlan Coben
Undoubtedly one of the best authors of missing person books, Harlan Coben introduces readers to Jake Fisher in his 2013 mystery, Six Years. It’s been six years since Jake watched Natalie, the love of his life, marry another man. Six years of tortured dreams featuring her life with her new husband, Todd. When Jake comes across Todd’s obituary, he’s curious enough to attend his funeral. There, he gets a glimpse of his mourning wife. Only it isn’t Natalie he sees.
As Jake searches for the truth about what he thought he knew about the best time of his life – a time he has never gotten over – his perfect memories of Natalie begin to unravel. Mutual friends the two of them can’t be found or don’t remember him. No one has seen her in years. Jake’s search for the woman who broke his heart soon begins to put his very life at risk as it dawns on him that the man he has become may be based on carefully constructed fiction.
The Paris Apartment – Lucy Foley
Jess is in need of a fresh start. Broke, alone and having just left her job, she asks her half-brother, Ben, if she can stay with him in his glamorous apartment in the heart of Paris. He doesn’t sound thrilled about the prospect but doesn’t say no. Only, when she arrives, Ben has vanished.
The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess begins to dig into her brother’s situation, digging up more questions in the process. His neighbours in the apartment complex are all eccentric, and not particularly friendly. And all of them have something to hide. Everyone’s a neighbour. And everyone has something they’re not telling. Lucy Foley’s The Paris Apartment is a gripping locked room mystery set against a stunning Parisian backdrop and one of the best books about missing persons.
Check Out The Best Books Like The Paris Apartment
When The Stars Go Dark – Paula McLain
Anna Hart is a missing persons detective in San Francisco. But, when personal tragedy strikes, she flees to the village of Mendocino in Northern California to grieve. The day she arrives, she learns a local teenage girl has gone missing. The crime feels frighteningly similar to Anna’s childhood when the unsolved murder of a young girl rocked Mendocino’s community and changed her life forever.
As the past and present collide, Anna begins to realise that she has been led to this moment. The most difficult lessons of her life have given her insight into how victims come into contact with violent predators. As she becomes obsessed with the missing girl, Anna must accept that true courage means learning to get out of her own way, and to let others in. Paula McLain’s When the Stars Go Dark is an enthralling mystery-thriller that pulls together real-life cases of missing persons, trauma theory and hints of the metaphysical for a deeply moving look at fate, redemption and reclaiming our lives.
A Flicker In The Dark – Stacy Willingham
A Flicker in the Dark is a 2022 mystery thriller, Stacy Willingham’s acclaimed debut novel, and one of the most absorbing books about missing persons. When Chloe Davis was twelve, six teenage girls went missing in her Louisana town. By the end of the summer, Chloe’s father had been arrested as a serial killer, put in prison, and both she and her family were left to deal with the fallout.
Two decades on, Chloe is a psychologist and getting prepared for her wedding. But, when a local teenage girl goes missing, and then another, that terrifying summer from her childhood comes hurtling back at her. Is she being paranoid and seeing parallels that aren’t really there? Or, for the second time in her life, is she about to unmask a serial killer?
Monday’s Not Coming – Tiffany D. Jackson
Monday Charles is missing, and only Claudia appears to have noticed. Claudia and Monday have been inseparable, closer to being sisters than friends. So when Monday doesn’t turn up for the first day of school, Claudia becomes worried. When she doesn’t arrive for the second or the third, she knows something is definitely wrong. Monday wouldn’t leave her to fend off the bullies and endure the tests alone. Not after last year’s rumours and not with her grades on the line.
But Monday’s mother refuses to give Claudia a straight answer, and her sister, April, is even less of a help when it comes to looking for her. Tiffany D. Jackson’s Monday’s Not Coming follows Claudia as she digs deeper into her friend’s disappearance, discovering that no one seems to remember the last time they saw her. But, how can a teenager just vanish without anyone noticing that she’s gone?
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
