Lost and Found

TWO BOOKS EXPLORE THE UNIQUE HORROR OF MURDER IN THE OUTDOORS

- EVA HOLLAND

ONCE, YEARS AGO, I tried to report a story about a girl who’d gone missing on the outskirts of a small town located in the wilderness of British Columbia. I hiked a footpath a quarter-mile from where she was last seen, then peered down the long gravel driveway where she vanished. I remember feeling chilled. My notes say things like: “Tree trunks wearing mossy fur coats.” “Fireweed in the ditch.” “Lonely.” I never wrote that story, but I never forgot the girl. There’s something especially haunting about people who disappear in the outdoors or are found dead there from unnatural causes. These tales get under our skin.