When I first cracked the binding on GONE WITHOUT A TRACE by Mary Torjussen, I wondered what had compelled my interest in it to begin with. I started to get a glimmer of “seen this, read that” within the first few pages. However, that dim light quickly receded within the first chapter or two, at which point the book was Velcroed to my hands, eyes and attention.

GONE WITHOUT A TRACE is narrated by Hannah Monroe, who we meet just as the oyster of her world is opening and right before it clamps shut, pinching her finger along the way. Hannah has a terrific job with an accounting firm and an all-but-assured promotion on the way. But all of that comes crashing down when she returns home from the office one day to find Matt, her live-in boyfriend, gone, along with all of his possessions and photos. Worse, he has somehow erased all of his email conversations and text messages with Hannah, and all but scrubbed himself off the internet. Hannah learns that Matt’s phone number is no longer working; he quit his job with an architect’s firm a week prior to disappearing; and his mother had moved a year ago without leaving a forwarding address. It is as if Matt never existed.

"Mary Torjussen may be a previously unpublished author, but GONE WITHOUT A TRACE is too strong and surefooted to be a debut novel in the classic sense of the term. This is a book that people will obsess over, discuss and read, read, read."

Hannah’s friends, particularly her lifelong friend, Katie, are quick to tell her to move on with her life since it’s obvious Matt wants nothing more to do with her. She can’t do that, though, and begins, to the exclusion of all else (including her work duties), obsessively analyzing Matt’s behavior in the weeks and months leading up to his disappearance searching for any signs he might’ve displayed that would’ve indicated he was unhappy with their relationship to the extent that he would get out of Dodge --- well, Liverpool, actually --- so abruptly.

As if Matt’s sudden disappearance isn’t bad enough, Hannah begins receiving unsettling and disturbing cryptic messages in various forms, from texts and notes to phone calls and videos. Things become progressively worse for her, even as she doggedly and obsessively follows the all-but-nonexistent trail of where Matt is, hoping to discover where he is and why he left. It is interesting to watch her play amateur sleuth, even as her career, appearance and well-being all go down the loo. Just wait. It takes Hannah a few months and two thirds of the book to finally learn Matt’s fate.

So what happens then? Let me say that the final third of the story is some of the most subtly chilling reading I’ve done lately. You might guess some of it, but not all of it. Just remember that it isn’t over until it is really, truly over. Mary Torjussen may be a previously unpublished author, but GONE WITHOUT A TRACE is too strong and surefooted to be a debut novel in the classic sense of the term. This is a book that people will obsess over, discuss and read, read, read. Oh, and if you’re thinking about ghosting your significant other, you might want to reconsider.