Who Gets Lost in the Woods

The forest swallows everything – sounds, lives, and the truth… For years, children from select families have come to the reserve in the Adirondack Mountains to have unforgettable experiences at the Camp Emerson summer camp, assisted by instructors and staff from the local community. But in August 1975, one of the campers mysteriously disappears. Thirteen-year-old Barbara Van Laar is not just anyone, but the daughter of the owners of the camp and everything around it. What’s more, her older brother, Bear, met the same fate here in 1961, and his body was never found. A family curse, a mysterious evil lurking among the trees, or simply the result of deep-rooted secrets and tangled lies? A young, ambitious investigator, Judy Luptackova, embarks on a difficult investigation that takes her deep into the wild forests and into the dark history of the Van Laar family. Her adversaries will not only be the sexism of the era, the relentless passage of time, and the impenetrable forest, but also the indifference and arrogance of the powerful, who will do anything to keep their sins forever buried beneath a layer of pine needles. Liz Moore hasn’t written an ordinary detective story or a straightforward thriller. In her gripping and multi-layered story, spanning two decades, she writes about the dark side of power, insurmountable class differences, and the fact that the most terrifying monsters often don't wear masks, but expensive suits. “Well, this was fantastic! An absolutely perfectly thought-out story full of emotion that I read in one breath.” – from reader reviews on Databazeknih.cz “Liz Moore has achieved something exceptional: she has written a novel that works like the perfectly oiled clockwork of a classic disappearance thriller, and at the same time as a layered, profound study of family trauma, class differences, and a mother's grief. It's a book you'll read in one breath, but it will stay in your head for a very long time.” – The New York Times Book Review “A breathtakingly atmospheric story. The author builds suspense with the patience of a spider spinning its web around the Adirondack Mountains. In her telling, the woods are not just a backdrop, but a living, breathing character that hides the sins of the rich as reliably as it hides the bodies of the victims. A masterpiece of modern crime literature.” – The Washington Post “Oh, this was a beautiful read, I couldn't tear myself away. I was captivated by the story itself – multi-layered, interesting, suspenseful, full of emotion – and I was also captivated by the atmosphere of the whole narrative. This was brilliantly written.” – from reader reviews on Databazeknih.cz “A captivating and ambitious literary thriller. The author brilliantly uses a structure of alternating timelines and points of view to show how one old secret can eat its way through generations. It is chilling, clever, and brutally honest about how powerless women and girls were in the 1970s when confronted with patriarchal power.” – The Guardian “This novel is like a deep forest you enter: at first, you only see the trees, but gradually you uncover an entire complex ecosystem of lies, money, and abuse of power. Liz Moore has written one of the best novels of the year.” – The Observer “I thought I knew where I was going,” the leader said in a self-assured tone, “but now I know I was wrong!” One leader stepped forward and prompted the audience. “What should Calvin do?” she asked with feigned seriousness. She placed her palms on her cheeks. When you get lost, the onlookers shouted in unison, sit down and shout. “Help!” said Calvin. “I need help!” He looked at an invisible watch. “One minute has passed,” he exclaimed, “so I should probably shout again!” An explanation soon followed: trying to get out of the forest can lead to disorientation and draw even an experienced woodsman deeper into the Adirondack wilderness. The terrain there is overgrown, with dense undergrowth; when you step off the path, it all looks the same. “Sixty-five percent of people,” Calvin said, “are less than twenty metres from the path when they start to feel disoriented.” Tracy listened, fascinated. She imagined the alluring pull of the forest, its cool and dark scent, the velvety moss on the stones – and then the gradual realisation that she was lost, the slow horror of accepting her unpleasant situation. – excerpt from the book