Kevin Wignall is always an interesting novelist, even when I don’t entirely care for some of his plotting choices. His latest is Those Who Disappeared, which had challenging moments, but was a very satisfying reading experience overall.

Foster Treherne is a young artist with a world-wide reputation, very famous and very wealthy. English and American by heritage, he lives mostly in Berlin and keeps a low personal profile. He’s generally disconnected from humanity, except for his staff. His father disappeared before he was born, and his mother committed suicide while he was a baby. His grandparents saw to his physical needs and education, but kept him at arms’ length. His essential view of life is, “People leave.”

Then he gets the news that his father’s body has been found, frozen in a Swiss glacier. With the help of an embassy employee, an attractive woman named Daniela with whom he cautiously begins a relationship, he gets the opportunity to see his own father for the only time in his life – in mummified form. Suddenly he conceives an obsessive desire to learn about this man. He studies his personal journal, found wrapped in plastic with the body, and goes through his old photos and documents. He makes contact with his father’s once-close group of post-graduate student friends, and is puzzled by their reactions. They tell contradictory stories, and lie about one another. They all say the same thing about Foster’s dad – “He was fun to be with, but had a dangerous side.” Are they trying to protect Foster from some harsh truth? Or is one of them actually guilty of murder?

Those Who Disappeared is a splendid example of a story which contains no shootouts or fist fights, but keeps the tension high and the reader fascinated. What’s better (for this reader) is that it’s the story of a man re-integrating with life. I love that kind of story, as it’s an experience I expect I’ll only ever have vicariously.

Anyway, I highly recommend Those Who Disappeared. There’s one problematic plot element for Christians, but it’s not preachy or implausible.