Review: "The Wild Between Us" by Amy Hagstrom

The Wild Between Us by Amy Hagstrom
Published November 2023 via Lake Union
★★★

Fifteen years ago, a girl went missing in the woods. She's never been seen since, but suspicions linger. Three other teenagers—Meg, Danny, and Silas—were in the woods with her, and they can't explain. And now, for the first time since it happened, they're all back in the same place...except Silas's young boys are lost in the woods, and it's a race against time and cold to find them.

This makes for a wonderfully solid read from a debut author. I'm a sucker for lost-in-the-woods books and gone-for-a-hike-in-the-woods books and murderer-in-the-woods books (and on and on it goes), and it's really satisfying to see so much of this book take place, well, in the woods.

The heavier emphasis is on the present-day search. Another reviewer noted that this is more a SAR book than a mystery, and that feels accurate—the search and rescue is very much the A plot to the disappearance B plot. That's partly because the search is so much more time-sensitive; there's a chance that Silas's boys can be saved, while there's no realistic good outcome for a girl who has been missing in the woods for more than a decade. But it's also because the POV characters aren't ready to share everything they know about that day fifteen years ago, when four went into the woods but only three came back out.

If there's a weak spot, that's where I see it—personal preference, but I'm generally not a fan of mysteries where POV characters know more than they're telling. It takes away a lot of the suspense for me, and I ended up wishing that we'd gotten more of that story earlier. Also, I guessed at the resolution of the years-old disappearance (or at least, the general shape of the resolution) relatively early on, and while I don't mind having guessed at it (give me a resolution that makes sense with the information you've been given rather than a twist that comes out of absolutely nowhere, any day of the week), there's a pivotal character who I would have liked to see more of in the present day.

With all that in mind: I want more of this! My rating falls somewhere between 3 and 4 stars, and I won't hesitate to pick up more of Hagstrom's books...especially if they take place in the wild.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.