Anna Hart is a seasoned missing persons detective in San Francisco with far too much knowledge of the darkest side of human nature. When tragedy strikes her personal life, Anna, desperate and numb, flees to the Northern California village of Mendocino to grieve. She lived there as a child with her beloved foster parents, and now she believes it might be the only place left for her. Yet the day she arrives, she learns that a local teenage girl has gone missing.

The crime feels frighteningly reminiscent of the most crucial time in Anna’s childhood, when the unsolved murder of a young girl touched Mendocino and changed the community forever. As past and present collide, Anna realizes that she has been led to this moment. The most difficult lessons of her life have given her insight into how victims come into contact with violent predators. As Anna becomes obsessed with saving the missing girl, she must accept that true courage means getting out of her own way and learning to let others in.

Weaving together actual cases of missing persons, trauma theory, and a hint of the metaphysical, this propulsive and deeply affecting novel tells a story of fate, necessary redemption, and what it takes, when the worst happens, to reclaim our lives—and our faith in one another.

This book contains mentions of a death of a child, drug use, and sexual assault.

Get an early look from the first pages of When the Stars Go Dark.

Paula McLain has written a thriller. Yes, you read that right. Paula McLain—the author of Circling the Sun and other well-known standouts of historical fiction—has written a thriller, the kind that only Paula McLain could write: a haunting, irresistible crime story with shades of historical truth, as if told by a poet.

When the Stars Go Dark is the story of Anna Hart, a seasoned missing persons detective in San Francisco. In the wake of a personal tragedy that has possibly destroyed her marriage, she returns to the small Northern California town of Mendocino, where she was raised by beloved foster parents, to bury herself in the work of locating a missing teenage girl. As she digs deeper into this mystifying disappearance, she finds herself revisiting the unsolved murder of a childhood friend decades earlier, an event that shook her community, and changed Anna forever.

As I read, I became entrenched in this town, these characters, and an unforgettable heroine who takes on a beautiful and heart-breaking adventure. You’ll both want to speed through the pages, and savor every moment—a rare feat for a book, and one that proves Paula McLain a master in any genre.