For anyone who has seen the Missing 411 documentary or read any of the articles or books, this books is probably for you. I LOVED that documentary and am glad to have finally read this author’s take on the subject. The number of people that go missing in our national parks is astounding and I appreciate these two men bringing this to light, albeit for two very different reasons. As Billman is quick to pull his punches by pointing out, Missing 411 seems to provide more weight to the more paranormal explanations for the vanishing. And I’m not here to say he’s wrong, as I do not claim to know everything there is to know in this universe and beyond, but I am a skeptic by nature. So I appreciated Billman’s more…”normal” (???), grounded (???), scientific (???) approach? Idk the right word here. But it was definitely a book where Billman, literally, put boots on the ground to help search for Jacob, a young man who went missing and who’s story is the central driving force of the book. But, Billman’s apparent digs at Missing 411, his gross-man ways of talking about women in the book (ogling wait staff, etc.), and just the massive number of stories woven in and around Jacob’s (it made it nearly impossible for me to keep them all straight) were enough to knock this from LOVED IT to REALLY liked it!

I did not finish this one, it was not for me, I couldn't relate to the characters, and just did not care for the story.

This book gives true-life accounts of wilderness disappearances and their families who who are desperately seeking closure.

After reading this book it opened my mind to how often these missing without a trace disappearances really happen and why they seem to stay out of the press shortly after and never seem to be solved and are dropped from review.

The book focuses on the case of a bike rider, Jacob Gray, who disappears in Washington’s Olympic National Park in April 2017. It gets a bit repetitive detailing the bureaucracy that the family goes through.

The book is divided into area of the country so if you are interested in just one section of the US you could just check that area if you are only interested in missing persons in your area.

After reading half of the book it gets a little eerie and kind of same old same old in how so many of the cases are so similar.

This was a DNF for me. I did try, multiple times over many months, to finish. The content was interesting and heartbreaking, but I found it difficult to follow the different accounts of individuals gone missing. It was just too much of a slog for me.

Living in the Rocky Mountain area I've heard of people going missing. (My friend actually knows someone who has been missing for years now.) So when I saw this book I knew I needed it. It amazes me just how many people are missing, and we don't even know an accurate number. It is sad and scary.

The book is a little different than what I thought it would be like. I didn't know it was going to be mainly about a certain person. My heart aches for Jacob's family. Along with every other family who has a loved one missing.

I thought this book was well researched. When he got to my state, I didn't even know what he was talking about. Somehow I missed the news.

Thanks, NetGalley for the copy of the book.

This is a good haunting book and will appeal to the macabre and the curious-minded in equal measure.

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC.
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A chilling account of those who vanish into the wilderness without a trace and those who try to find them with a much needed side of humor. I enjoyed the addition of the maps, photos, etc. to tell the stories. Here in the PNW, I see this book everywhere. It’s a must read!

Thank you to NetGalley, Grand Central, and the author for the review copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I dream of becoming a more outdoorsy person, but after reading this? I'm content with my books inside. Part-true crime, part-adventure/survival, The Cold Vanish tells the untold stories of what happens AFTER someone goes missing. I found it so informative and interesting, if a little terrifying.

This is such a haunting and unsettling book, which is exactly what it should be, given the subject matter. Billman does a great job illustrating the helplessness of families being left in limbo when loved ones go missing, specifically in wilderness areas, where there are even more hindrances to solving the missing persons cases. This is definitely a book that I will not soon forget

I love nothing more than to read about unsolved cases and people that were never found. It's incredible how the most intelligent humans can come together with their amazing resources and still come up short when it comes to finding people.

Author Jon Billman follows the case of cyclist, Jacob Gray, whose bike and substantial gear were found next to a river in Washington State’s Olympic National Park. What follows is not only a search for Jacob, but almost a catalog of the huge number of missing and sometimes solved and sometimes unsolved cases throughout the National Park system.

At times while reading The Cold Vanish, I felt overwhelmed. I had to backtrack to follow names and dates and places. And maybe that’s the point. There are so many names and dates and places. People go missing, sometimes without a trace, which nourishes all types of conspiracy theories that a reader can almost begin to believe. How can this person go missing a short distance from his hiking mates with no sign of his departure?

The author parades Big Foot stories and psychic stories and alien stories without (much) judgment because at a certain point logic doesn’t seem to prevail. And those kids who say that a bear took them and kept them warm and fed them? What if it IS Bigfoot? Or maybe it really is a kind bear.

My attention was also caught by the place where people disappeared and where Native Americans had long ago decided not to venture. A portal? Evil? What exactly? And, maybe you don’t believe, but . . .

A stupefying number of statistics float by but one of the worst to read was that Montana has a Native American population of 7% but they account for over 30+% of the state’s missing–Native American women and children.

The stories cover many states, mostly western including Hawaii, but the story always comes back to Jacob.

Jacob’s father, Randy, is without a doubt the hero of this story. He thinks about his son constantly; he searches for his son constantly. He keeps his son alive and dreams about sharing those morning mochas that were their thing and going surfing and doing all the things they did in their before time. He’s a good, spiritual person who “never lies” about anything even the couple of avocadoes in the back of the camper as he and Jon cross over into Canada. As a reader and human being, I wanted Randy to be right, to have those happily ever after moments with Jacob.

The Cold Vanish is a story where you can get lost among all of the missing and sometimes there’s not much hope, but it is eye opening and well written and edifying and sometimes, although not often, the stories have a happy ending, like life, I guess.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book details a man's search for his missing son, Jacob Gray, who vanished in Washington state after a bicycle trip to explore a national park in April of 2017. The author went along with the missing man's father as he searched different areas for his son. The book also details other missing persons' cases. It is quite detailed and very interesting. I highly recommend this book to other readers interested in true mysteries.

This book was not exactly what I expected. I thought it might go into the details of the missing person cases more, but it was definitely more focused on the process of what a search and rescue operation looks like. It also talked a lot about Big Foot theories as they relate to missing person cases without sounding too “out there”. While the info on search and rescue certainly was interesting, an entire book about the topic just didn’t hold my internet; however for someone more interested in the outdoors, this book would probably be a must-read. I also felt like this book was more of a stream of conscience type of story than I am used to. This made it very hard for me to follow and piece together a time line. I think I am just more used to a true crime type book or podcast where everything is laid out in very clear chronological order. This was more a human interest story that wasn’t so focused on the case but on the search and rescue operation and on the people involved. This wasn’t a bad thing, just not the story I was looking for at the time. If this is the approach you like to take to a missing person case, you will absolutely enjoy this book!

I appreciated the chance to read this book. The author went into a great amount of detail on what it takes to look for missing persons, and I'm sure this will appeal to true crime fans. For me personally, I never got invested in the initial case that the author explored, which we return to time and time again in the book.

Missing persons are some of the hardest stories to write about as so much is left in the unknown and it's about putting every little piece of information you have to use. The research and stories brought to light in "The Cold Vanish" were beautifully told and also heartbreaking to read.

This book definitely puts a new perspective on the outdoors. Jacob Gray disappeared from Olympic national park. He had been taking a bike ride and his belongings were found but no sign of him. He had battled with mental illness but his family says he wasn’t suicidal. There were many theories about what could have happened like a serial killer etc. the book takes you on the journey of his family and gives you an idea what it’s like to deal with someone who goes missing that’s close to you.

I would have rated this a four star; however I found a spelling error, a missing word, and it seemed to jump around a lot which made it hard to focus at times. I feel like whenever I find things like this while reading it instantly rates lower. With that said this book was very interesting. I never knew how many people go missing in state parks and national forests. It’s amazing that even a fraction of the missing people are found safe. For those who aren’t found safe; unfortunately, are found deceased or are never located at all! One thing that really got me thinking in this book is how it really ends up being the families responsibility to continue searching after the case goes cold. How do you manage to maintain a job and a life AND take the time needed to search for your missing loved one? Some family’s can’t afford to quit their job or sell their house to fund the search. The other thing that blew my mind was the sheer power of a dogs smell, specifically a bloodhound. It the book, the author describes how a bloodhound owner and search and rescue member was demonstrating how good the dogs nose was. They went to the house of Jon Benet Ramsey and the dog hit on the smell of cadaver 25 years after the murder occurred. How incredible!

“The Cold Vanish” is such a great book! While I do love non-fiction, I don’t read a lot of it. When I do it’s something I pick up here and there not usually reading it at a pace as that of fiction. This story reads like a novel which is one thing that made it so enjoyable to read. The subject matter is sad and it’s also fascinating. For me this subject is not one I’ve known much about and this book takes the reader into a world you can get to without having to travel. It is that well written and that interesting to learn about. I have not read it to the end, but if non-fiction can pull me in the same as my fiction does, then It’s an easy winner of a story.

Thank you to Netgalley and Grand Central for the opportunity to read this book.

This book is FANTASTIC. If you have heard, whether in passing or in active search, of the missing people in our National Parks you must read this book. It is too often that these stories turn into ghoulish ghost stories or wild conspiracy theories but Jon Billman, with his diligent research and in-field work, turns those stories in the head.

Jon moves between first-hand experience on searches, discussions with seasoned experts, and explorations of the greater 'why' behind it with ease. If you have read his Outdoor article and enjoyed it, you're going to love this book.

The heartfelt, yet well-researched, approach to this book is an absolute must. If you've never even heard of this phenomenon, I think you could still enjoy this dynamic non-fiction narrative.

The way that Billman weaves Jacob Gray's story through a proverbial forest of other, equally heartbreaking tales of those who go missing in public and wild places, was both fascinating and heartbreaking. It truly drove in the idea that it could literally happen to anyone and your chances of survival depend on anything from weather patterns, socioeconomic bracket, and which side of municipal jurisdiction lines you happened to cross. My one complaint with this is that it didn't dive in to the issues around race and poverty that it could have, but I did read it right after the Gabi Pettito disappearance when this was top of mind and conversation across the US.