“I roll into a ball and try to resist the call of what must be at least dozens of ghosts.”
Alexa Bentley is marginally employed woman who makes her living providing “therapy” to the dead who don’t know how to move on. Now, being between jobs, Alexa trucks up to Munising, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to see Leslie who runs a message parlor that is haunted by Mrs. Felton, a customer that had died during a session. Mrs. Felton had been grieving about her runaway son Josh, and her spirit will not rest until he has been found, alive or dead. Unfortunately, it seems that Josh is just one of a
LONG
line of young men that had disappeared from the area over the years.
What Mrs. Felton wants from Alexa is for her to find out the fate of her son. It is here that Alexa finds out about the long line of missing boys, and that her job in Munising is not going to be as easy as she thought she would be. Now she has to go from being a spirit “therapist” to that of a detective. A job that she doesn’t think that she’s qualified for.
So, Alexa adopts the persona of that of a novelist doing research, and through this persona she is able to ask questions without arousing too much attention. While nosing around she meets Munising’s local top cop Chad Hambler, a looker who sets her heart aflutter. Along with him, Alexa meets his distant, and initially, unfriendly secretary Sally. Alexa gets her interview with Sherriff Hambler, but she gets the impression that her questions about any of the disappearances are unwanted.
As she continues to ask about town, she is exposed to the local legend of the Wendigo, a brutal creature that lives in he nearby woods that might be picking off the runaway kids. To gather some information on this legend she takes a trip to Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community Collage to see Prof. Wayne Williams who is an expert in local Indian lore.
The melodrama is then ratcheted up as it becomes a toss-up as to who Alexa will fall for, Chad or Wayne? However, during her information gathering Alexa, realizes that she will have to go to the local Isle Royal in it’s off season to continue her investigations.
Missing in Michigan
by April A. Taylor is a pretty straightforward story that goes A to Z, with no real surprises, except for one. That one is that this novel has a real disappointing, and weak ending, one that goes on way too long, and which undercuts everything that has come before it. All-in-all, the novel is so bland, and so flat, that it reads like either an outline for a longer and better novel, or an adaptation of a television movie. This is a novel with a good premise, but with an underwhelming creation. It is also a novel that could easily be mistaken for a juvenile, or a book for young readers.