Even before you dive into In Case I Go Missing, author R. N. Swann maintains a bit of a mystery about herself.  Although the publisher provides a picture of her in the inside jacket cover, she publishes exclusively under her pen name and initials, R. N. Swann. Her unabbreviated first and middle names have not been publicly disclosed or shared in her official biographies.

For those who enjoy reading young adult mystery novels, this 385-page, wide line spacing typeset is a quick read and lives up to its reviews: “Early praise from Kirkus Reviews calls the novel “immersive and tightly plotted,” while School Library Journal deems it “a compelling story that succeeds by focusing as much on the emotional toll of grief and betrayal as it does on the mystery.” 

Feeny Allen’s best friend, a seventeen-year-old amateur detective, Sarah Vincenty, has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. A who-done-it mystery, Sarah had been a girl “obsessed” with solving big cold cases in the town where she lives.  Feeny finds a binder that Sarah titled, “In Case I Go Missing.”  In the binder, eight names are listed as possible suspects in an investigation Sarah was conducting — these same names Feeny believes were responsible for Sarah’s disappearance. Secrecy, conflict, threats, and the occasional curse word push the plot along. Divided into three parts, each chapter reveals more and more clues.  Written more like a diary, bouncing between dialog and recollections of Sarah’s from the past few years, it is a fast-paced, easy read, with wider line spacing and larger font, which should appeal to reluctant readers who will want to find out what happened to Feeny.

-Richard Bender, edited by Kristi Bonds