Finished: Disappearing Earth (Phillips) This was a very good, page-turning book about the people on the periphery, yet very entangled in, the disappearance of two little girls, sisters, in a remote area of Russia. I was truly surprised by the ending and glad some of the characters tied together the way they did. There were a couple of characters whose stories I would have liked to see more of, or a bit more resolved, but the author is a very talented writer who I would like to read more from! I'm just going to be lazy and put the Amazon recap here because it describes the book better than I could. :-)

"One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka peninsula at the northeastern edge of Russia, two girls--sisters, eight and eleven--go missing. In the ensuing weeks, then months, the police investigation turns up nothing. Echoes of the disappearance reverberate across a tightly woven community, with the fear and loss felt most deeply among its women.

Taking us through a year in Kamchatka, Disappearing Earth enters with astonishing emotional acuity the worlds of a cast of richly drawn characters, all connected by the crime: a witness, a neighbor, a detective, a mother. We are transported to vistas of rugged beauty--densely wooded forests, open expanses of tundra, soaring volcanoes, and the glassy seas that border Japan and Alaska--and into a region as complex as it is alluring, where social and ethnic tensions have long simmered, and where outsiders are often the first to be accused.

In a story as propulsive as it is emotionally engaging, and through a young writer's virtuosic feat of empathy and imagination, this powerful novel brings us to a new understanding of the intricate bonds of family and community, in a Russia unlike any we have seen before."