The Missing - Softcover

Praise for -- THE CLEARING 'An extraordinary novel, one of the best I've read in years' -- Annie Proulx, Guardian Summer Books 'So firmly located and vividly realised that you can almost smell the Louisiana swampwater ... a gripping, action-packed tale, but also a notably intelligent one' -- Jem Poster, Guardian 'Near-perfect ... untouchably good' -- Alan Warner, Daily Telegraph Summer Books 'Astonishingly powerful ... brilliantly written and the characters in their mire are superbly realised' -- Daily Telegraph 'Carries an emotional charge far beyond its pages...I cannot recommend it highly enough.' -- Peter Straus, Literary Review 'He captures the fetid atmosphere of a frontier society poised to join the modern world with great skill, each sentence polished to perfection' -- Independent on Sunday 'Compels you forward like a handcar on a downhill slope, until the final escape...you read it in wonder' -- Kent Haruf 'It presents the reader with an interesting dilemma: do you give in to the stifling suspense and read quickly, to find out what happens to the novel's vivid characters, or do you go slow, savoring each delicious sentence, and thereby risking, by the climax, a nervous breakdown?' -- Richard Russo 'A marvelous evocation of time and place merges seamlessly with Gautreaux's powerful and timeless story' -- William Gay

Returning to New Orleans from the battlefields of France in 1919, Sam Simoneaux determines to put destruction behind him and settle down with his wife. But when a little girl is abducted on his watch at a department store, he feels duty bound to help find her. Getting a job on a steamboat alongside her musician parents, he embarks on a dangerous foray up the Mississippi and into its lawless hinterland. Set in Louisiana during prohibition and at the dawn of the Jazz Age, The Missing vividly evokes a ragged frontier country where violence is just another way of life. Taut with suspense and profoundly affecting, this is an enthralling tale of vengeance, conscience and redemption by an exceptional writer. Tim Gautreaux is the author of two short story collections and the novels The Next Step In The Dance and The Clearing. 'An extraordinary novel, one of the best I've read in years' Annie Proulx, Guardian 'Near perfect...untouchably good' Alan Warner, Books of the Year, Daily Telegraph 'Astonishingly powerful...brilliantly written and the characters in their mire are superbly realised' Toby Clements, Daily Telegraph