Leave No Trace
Deep in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota - a sprawling, unforgiving wilderness of glacial lakes and dense forests - a father and son vanished without a trace. Their ravaged campsite pointed to a brutal bear attack, and for a decade, the world assumed they were dead.
Then, the son returns.
Apprehended while violently burglarizing an outfitter, the now-feral young man is locked in a psychiatric ward, refusing to utter a single word about his missing father or his harrowing survival. Assistant language therapist Maya Stark is tasked with breaking through his impenetrable silence. But Maya carries her own buried trauma of maternal abandonment. As she forms an intense, dangerous connection with this survivor, she finds herself risking everything to uncover the truth of the last ten years - and to find the father who disappeared into the wild.
- Maya - Assistant speech therapist at Congdon Psychiatric Facility, 23
- Dr. Mehta - Head psychiatrist at Congdon
- Jasper - Maya’s dog
- Bryce - Orderly at Congdon
- Jane - Maya’s mother
- Lucas - Patient at Congdon, 19
- Josiah - Lucas’ father
- Sarah - Lucas’ mother
- Brian - Maya’s father, salvage tug captain
- Butch - Brian’s first mate
- Heather - Josiah’s previous landlord
- Harry - Maya’s neighbor at the cabin
- Lucas is arrested and committed to Congdon after being caught robbing an outfitter store and identified as the young boy who went missing ten years earlier.
- Lucas attacks Maya and tries to strangle her.
- The next day Lucas speaks to Maya for the first time since being admitted to Congdon.
- Lucas refuses to talk to police or tell anyone where Josiah is because he thinks Josiah will be arrested if he is found.
- Maya finds information about Heather, who went missing while Josiah was staying in the other side of the duplex she owned.
- Josiah had been arrested for obstruction of justice after lying about the last time he had seen Heather and then Josiah and Lucas disappeared.
- Two days later Heather’s body was found with heroin in her system and it was ruled an accidental overdose.
- Lucas tells Maya that one night he got really sick and ended up in Heather’s house where she helped Josiah nurse him back to health.
- During the night Lucas saw Josiah carrying Heather over his shoulder, putting her in his car and driving away.
- The next day they went into the woods and never came out until Josiah got very sick and Lucas broke into the outfitter store looking for medicine.
- Maya tells Lucas she was a former patient at Congdon for six months after killing a man who was trying to rape her while she was at Jane’s cabin.
- Bryce catches Lucas and Maya getting cozy and Lucas attacks Bryce.
- Dr. Mehta pulls Maya off Lucas’ case and says the U.S. Forest Service will go without Congdon’s help to look for Josiah.
- Maya breaks Lucas out of Congdon.
- They go to Jane’s old cabin on the edge of the Boundary Waters and Lucas recognizes it.
- He realizes the cabin is the place where he was sick, not Heather’s house, so it was Jane’s body he saw being carried by Josiah.
- Lucas takes Maya to his and Josiah’s home in the Boundary Waters.
- They find Josiah alive but severely emaciated and with two huge lumps on his neck.
- Maya confronts Josiah about what happened to Jane.
- Josiah explains that he met Jane while living in the Boundary Waters and she took him and Lucas in for a few days when Lucas was very sick with the flu.
- Jane swallowed three bottles of Tylenol and killed herself while Josiah and Lucas were staying with her.
- Josiah was afraid he would be blamed for Jane’s death and Lucas would be taken away from him, so he buried her in the Boundary Waters.
- While Lucas and Maya try to escort Josiah out of the Boundary Waters, they run into forest rangers.
- Josiah slit his throat and fell into the lake.
- Two years later: Maya went on trial for kidnapping and assault and served sixteen months in prison.
- Maya and Lucas live in Jane’s cabin.
Leave No Trace immediately sets itself apart from the psychiatric facility suspense novels I usually gravitate toward. Maya is a firecracker who says exactly what she feels, and her blunt dialogue gave me some good chuckles. I found it refreshing to follow a protagonist who never holds back. The story relies on medium to long chapters, which works well enough at the start to establish the setting, but the pacing eventually takes a hit. The second half gets slow and loses momentum, specifically during a point where the setting changes. Those few days felt like pure filler that served no real purpose to the overall story.
While there is a genuinely good twist woven into the plot, the ending was meh for me because of how the truth finally comes to light. Instead of letting the reveal play out in the present during a high-stakes confrontation, the author uses a flashback to show what really happened. Because of that structural choice, the tension just evaporates. The book never reaches a peak point, so I did not get any real thrills from finding things out or watching the narrative wrap up. If you like long chapters, unconventional psychiatric settings, and blunt protagonists, then you will enjoy this book.
- Sarah - Dead - Brain aneurysm
- Heather - Dead - Drug overdose
- Jane - Dead - Committed suicide
- Josiah - Dead - Committed suicide
- Lucas - Alive - Living with Maya
- Maya - Alive - Living with Lucas After serving sixteen month in prison
- Suicide
- Death of a parent
- Depression
- Sexual assault
ISBN: 9781501177378
Publication Date: July 9, 2019
Note: Details are for the original edition. Other formats, editions, and audiobook versions may be available.
