Book Review - Without A Trace by Colleen Coble

Without a trace - do these words call to mind a mystery, a disappearance, or a murder maybe? For most people they probably do. In Without A Trace by Colleen Coble all three appear and are intertwined with skill.

Bree Nicholls and her best friend, Naomi Heinomen are the Kitchigami K-9 Search and Rescue team along with their dogs Samson and Charley. Their first task in Without A Trace is to locate two missing children, one of whom is diabetic and in need of his medication. Time is a ticking bomb as the SAR team goes to work hunting for the brother and sister pair in the forests of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Colleen Coble paints a vivid picture of the area Bree Nicholls calls home. The reader can see the mountains and the trees and can feel the cold as winter approaches. The urgency to locate the children of a local resident bursts through to the reader with Ms. Coble's smooth writing style. In the background is the knowledge that Bree is anxious to find the missing kids alive because her own son was lost in an airplane crash along with his father a year before. No one has been able to locate the crash site, not even Bree and Samson. Bree doesn't want another parent to have to suffer the pangs of grief over a missing child.

In her attempt to locate Timmy and Emily alive at all costs, Bree butts heads with the ranger in charge, Kade Matthews. Kade's need to locate the children may stem from a different point, but it is just as strong as Bree's. He wants the search to proceed his way, and Bree insists on doing it her way. When the search ends Kade has to grudgingly admit Bree's methods worked.

The strife between Bree and Kade continues throughout the book because his actions lead Bree to be suspicious of him when another local resident ends up dead. The Kitchigami SAR team finds the woman's body at the base of a cliff and moments later Kade Matthews appears out of the woods nearby. Coincidence? It seems so until an autopsy proves the woman died a short distance away and had been carried to the bottom of the cliff. Who killed her? She and her husband seemed to be at odds with one another. An old boyfriend argued with her in public and moments later her uncle attacked her verbally about a business deal she was about to conclude. Was the murder one of those people, someone else, or the mysterious woman roaming the forests nearby? Did Kade do it?

A year has passed since since the plane crash widowed Bree. She finds herself being drawn to Kade in spite of her misgivings about him. As she learns more about the man she grows more attracted. The unsolved mystery of the climber's death, Kade's stormy relationship with his teenaged sister, and his religious bent all bind together to keep Bree from allowing herself to let go of the past and explore a possible future with him.

Bree doesn't believe that the God Naomi, Anu (her mother-in-law), her sister-in-law, and even Kade worship could be as benevolent as they claim. If He were why would He allow her family to be destroyed? If God could let her husband betray their marriage and then take Rob and their son, Davy, away from her why would she want to devote her life to Him?

Readers become enthralled with the characters Colleen creates in Without A Trace as they grow to know the residents of Rock Harbor and are drawn into their world. Will Bree discover the crash site and be able to bury the bodies she will find with the carcass of the plane? Will she find the true love God has for her? And what about the murderer, will it turn out to be one of the people of the town? The only way to find out is to read Without A Trace. I think you will enjoy the search.

kmparis