THE COLD VANISH

True-life accounts of wilderness disappearances and the families desperately seeking closure.

Journalist Billman, a regular contributor to Outside, is “obsessed with writing about missing persons in wild places,” particularly those stories that “defy conventional logic…the proverbial vanish-without-a-trace incidents, which happen a lot more (and a lot closer to your backyard) than almost anyone thinks.” In his nonfiction debut, the author focuses primarily on the case of Jacob Gray, who stepped off his red bicycle in Washington’s Olympic National Park in April 2017 and disappeared into the wilderness. Billman takes us along on his journey with Gray’s family as they retrace Jacob’s steps, examine the few available clues, and encounter excessive bureaucracy in their search efforts. As he chronicles their trek across North America following leads, the author shares the rampant conspiracy theories, the skeptical yet hopeful encounters with psychics, and the emotional strain of a family who put their lives on hold in search of answers. “For someone close to someone missing,” writes Billman, “the world is reduced to this binary: missing and searching. Two awful gerunds.” Gray’s father, writes the author, “will liquidate his world in order to find his son. Or die trying.” Interwoven into Gray’s story are detailed accounts of other individuals who have gone missing in the wildlands of North America, many that eerily echo the mystery surrounding Gray’s disappearance. According to data cited by Billman, more than 600,000 individuals go missing in North America each year. While most are “quickly found alive,” those who vanish in the wilderness face much steeper odds of being found—and the author engagingly follows these sad yet absorbing cases. Some have been discovered in places previously searched; some have walked out on their own; some remain unexplained.

A compassionate, sympathetic, and haunting book sure to make you think twice before stepping out into the wilderness alone.