Leslie Wolfe’s book “If I Go Missing” follows Alana and Daniel, a young couple in California. Daniel runs a local diner with his brother, Jason. Alana is a fourth-grade school teacher. They are in the process of starting a family.
Alana and Daniel have a nice house with a wonderful neighbor, Mrs. Moore. Mrs. Moore is an elderly woman who lives with her cat, Marcello. The young couple enjoy socializing with her and Marcello.
One day, movers show up at Mrs. Moore’s house unloading furniture. Alana and Daniel were unaware that Mrs. Moore had moved and sold her house.
I found this fact odd. If Mrs. Moore is your only neighbor, wouldn’t you notice when the house is no longer occupied?
They go over to meet the new neighbors, only for Alana to realize that the new neighbors are her high school best friend, Chloe, and her first boyfriend, Ray. She is stunned, to say the least.
Thus begins Alana’s descent into deceiving her husband and hiding things from the people around her. Throughout the book, you will find out that Alana has a lot of secrets she wants to stay unknown. Alana has always been a true-crime junkie, listening to podcasts and trying to solve the mystery or murder.
This all started when a young woman disappeared while she and Chloe were in high school. The facts about the missing girl bothered her because if police could have acted sooner with passwords and codes, they might have found the girl alive. From this fascination, she stumbled upon the concept called the “If I Go Missing” binder.
The binder is a book you can store, fingerprints, DNA, passwords, codes and important information that can be used to find you if you go missing. It allows the police to have vital information before the first 24 hours have passed. She becomes so obsessed with it that she, over the wishes of her school administration, has her fourth-graders make their own binders.
When Chloe disappears, Alana assists Ray in locating Chloe’s binder and then trying to find out what happened to Chloe. There’s more than just Chloe’s disappearance, but I don’t want to ruin the story.
It was a gripping plot line, and the concept was very intriguing. However, I had a hard time sympathizing with Chloe. It’s interesting to read what a person with a guilty conscience will do when they think they have to keep things compartmentalized and hidden from people.
