I received an advanced copy of this book from Net Galley and the publisher in return for an honest review. The release date for this book was 7 July 2020

The Cold Vanish by Jon Billman | Waterstones

Jon Billman has portrayed him and our family as unstable, chaotic, and negligent which is far from the truth. What he failed to show was the deep love and commitment of a family who wanted to find a lost member alive and everything that stood in their way. These are the stories that defy conventional logic. The proverbial vanished without a trace incidences, which happen a lot ... It is clear that some of the missing, young men especially, have chosen, if not to disappear, then to find a form of spiritual development that requires that they absent themselves from the populated world for a time. Other people simply get turned around in the woods, or are ambushed by conditions they weren't prepared for, or are, possibly, the victims of foul play. But under the routine hustle and bustle, there’s another layer: the world of the missing, their loved ones, and the ones who search. And search. And search ... Unlike those books, each of which focuses on a single disappearance, The Cold Vanish: Seeking the Missing in North America's Wildlands presents the stories of multiple individuals who vanished without a trace in wild areas across North America and a few other places on the globe, including Australia, Israel and Hawaii. It is nicely structured, with a narrative that weaves around the efforts of Randy Gray to locate his son Jacob, who disappeared in Olympic National Park in April 2017. Alternating chapters relate the stories of other missing persons and of the individuals who are committed to finding them.

Search

Park rangers see the full spectrum of human behavior—it's possible the rider decided bike touring is not for him or met someone interesting and caught a lift to Seattle. Rational professionals I've met in my research—law enforcement and search-and-rescue personnel—tend to believe that our world is still a big, wild, and remote place, and logic and reason are at the core of missing persons cases. A very difficult puzzle laid out on a massive table, but there are rules and clues, and the puzzle can be solved. I agree with them most of the time. The author writes in an engaging journalistic style. He is an outdoor writer and his interest in what may seem to many an esoteric topic was piqued by an assignment for Outside magazine. He tells a good story, and his approach of diving deeply into the Jacob Gray case interspersed with accounts of others who disappeared in wild places works well. The “wild” here is not necessarily wilderness because some of the people in the book vanish on the outskirts of cities, in the “urban-wildland interface” where runners disappear on their daily workout and day-hikers go missing on what should be easy terrain. While some inexplicably vanish in what might be called deep wilderness, most of the cases Billman describes are not of that sort. People are lost where they shouldn’t be lost and where intense searches should easily find them, but do not. Billman writes: As such, his characterization of Jacob was, understandably, incredibly upsetting. Especially when he claims Jacob wasn’t “disciplined,” even comparing him to his brother for this hurtful claim. Jacob maintained great grades at school, excelled at his job, and kept up an incredibly strict and healthy lifestyle. Anyone who knew him would describe Jacob as anything but undisciplined. He was hardworking and had great things ahead of him, we all knew this and respected him.

The Cold Vanish by Jon Billman | Hachette Book Group

Hachette Book Group is a leading book publisher based in New York and a division of Hachette Livre, the third-largest publisher in the world. Social MediaAn insider’s account of the rampant misconduct within the Trump administration, including the tumult surrounding the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. The primary focus of this book is the story of Jacob Gray, who disappeared in Olympic National Park and the sheer determination of his father to find out what happened to his son. Through deep research and personal investigation, Jon Billman has crafted the definitive account of the baffling stories of people who go missing in the wilderness. The Cold Vanish is provocative, disturbing, compulsively readable-and a brilliant achievement." On the afternoon of April 6, an Olympic National Park worker radios his dispatch. "Dispatch, 7-4-1 Ron on North Plain. I've got a bicycle that has went off the Sol Duc Road about, ah, mile marker 7, and I can't find anyone around it. You might want to send a ranger up here so we can see what's going on."