The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (audiobook)

genre: historical mystery

Barbara Van Laar has gone missing from her bunk at a camp in the Adirondack mountains, but Barbara isn't just any camper. She's the daughter of the owners of the camp - and she isn't the first Van Laar child to go missing.  As investigators descend up on the camp, the list of suspects lengthens until it feels like every single person is hiding something.  Where is Barbara and who will lead searchers to her?  

The present day in this book is 1975 but it goes back and forth in time a LOT.  Every chapter heading grounds us as readers in a time period to help us keep it straight, and for the most part, I had no problem.  So many characters, though, to keep track of - that was almost harder but by the end, I stood on firm ground.  There aren't many lovable characters but I did care about Barbara and her younger brother and really wanted to know what the heck happened. The truth is that this book grabbed me and did not let go.  I didn't guess any of the plot twists, actually, which is always such a pleasure.  The time period made the investigating interesting - the limited technology was still better than no technology but also, so much guesswork.  The camp/woodsy setting was atmospheric and hearing from both teen and adult points of view worked well for me.

If you like mysteries that aren't super gruesome or upsetting, but with lots of different character arcs, I would recommend this!  4.5 stars!