Last Seen Leaving

Starred review from September 11, 2006
Two women in crisis learn important lessons about "life and death and the nature of love" in Braffet's brilliant second novel (after 2005's Jack and Josie
). Anne Cassidy, a 48-year-old New Age devotee living in Sedona, Ariz., knows something major has gone wrong when her daughter, Miranda, a college dropout and aimless drifter currently in Pittsburgh, Pa., doesn't answer her calls and Randa's phone is later disconnected. After two months, Anne must face a mother's worst fear—that her daughter has vanished. Meanwhile, Randa has crashed her car and left it to start a new life after accepting a ride from "George," an odd stranger who's either a serial killer or a covert CIA operative. George drops her off in Lawrence Beach, Va., where she takes a chambermaid job at a cheap motel. At the end of the tourist season, Randa's reduced to living in a friend's van while female bodies continue to surface in the seaside community. In Pittsburgh, Anne hunts for clues to her daughter's disappearance and revisits the equally disturbing disappearance of Nick, her pilot husband, in 1984. Fluid prose, vivid characters and suspenseful twists lead to a hopeful denouement. Author tour.