Intoxicatingly paced, Kim Echlin’s “The Disappeared” draws the reader into the rich experiences of its characters and their vibrant relationships and worlds. Echlin convincingly captures perspectives and emotions at different ages – the naive conviction and unstoppable passion of a precocious teenager, the quiet resolve of an aging widower and parent, the death-defying devotion of a person to a tragically lost family, history and country, the determination bordering on obsession of another person literally reclaiming pieces of a shattered life and love. Surprisingly, Echlin’s prose is spare and at times abrupt, yet it still manages to sweep the reader into 1960s-70s Montreal and Phnom Penh and back again. This is a moving, evocative and unforgettable story.