Amanda Eyre Ward: How to be Lost

The winters seem to live the American Dream. Isabelle is beautiful and hides her depression skilfully. Joseph is at his professional peak and only intermittently brutal. Their three daughters glow with youth, talent, and cash assets.

Then the youngest girl goes to school one morning, turns to wave, and is never seen again. Everything and everyone cracks apart. Drink kills one of them. Drugs seem about to destroy a second.

Fifteen years trek by. The creature accused of abducting and killing the little girl is about to be tried for other, similar atrocities. And then, at another awful family Christmas, Caroline the elder and renegade sister is shown a magazine photo. It's the missing, now-20-year-old Ellie ... isn't it?

This is quite a book. At times, the sinewy, sensuous style is near perfect. The dialogue darts and defines. The plot surges, sweeps, and nearly always keeps its clarity. The italicised flashbacks are visually irritating, rather a lot of minor characters drop in and out, but relationships among the complex, convincing characters weave and knot with absolute conviction. Imagine Jane Austen on bourbon and filter-tips, and you're partway there.

There's another death. There's hesitation and weariness. But finally, Caroline leaves her job as a New Orleans cocktail waitress and starts hunting. She's 32, and hasn't had a date for a year. She has few leads, little money, but she's got commitment, a DIY detective manual, and a whole lot of beer.

Am I saying this story of desperation and disintegration is funny? Damn right.

As Caroline's private road movie becomes a journey to save the rest of her family, and as the story becomes punctuated by enigmatic, creepy letters whose purpose slowly becomes clear, there are glints of a terrific bleak, last-orders-please comedy with room for super-models, rodent problems, fake designer labels, and a honeymoon suite with a rather scummy heart-shaped bathtub.

There's a Spanish-speaking, aphorism-dropping teenage hitchhiker. There's a six-dog Alaskan Husky dog race and a knight with excessively shiny armour.

Just when Caroline seems to have completed her quest, things have to begin again. Other people's despair and degradation comes flooding in. A hostage denies any need for rescue. A flight to Alaska is cancelled, with life-shaking results. There's a totally corny and totally satisfying ending.

A great title and a great discovery.

* David Hill is a Taranaki writer and reviewer.

* Hutchinson, $36.95