Lois Larkin takes her class on a field trip to the woods in the small town of Corpus Christi, Maine. One of her third-grade students, a creepy little freak named James Walker, goes missing. The best part about this setup is the way Langan spends time with her characters. They move through the story as genuine people would, engaging with unforeseen danger realistically. The reader has a front-row seat to events as they are unfolding, the characters not holding anything back as hidden behaviors are revealed-their true selves intimately on display just it would be observing real life.

Lois Larkin worries about James Walker being lost and alone in the woods but her primary concern is for herself and what it means that a child went missing on her watch.
She has no idea how bad it really is or how this is only the beginning of some really scary shit about to take place in her hometown. Little James Walker is being drawn to a nasty, violent entity looking for the perfect victim to host a fast-spreading plague to everyone that will come looking for him and more.

Now, The Missing is in the same connected universe as Langan's first novel The Keeper. I haven't read that and I understand these books can be read as standalone novels. Based on my experience with The Missing, I would say that's accurate. I never felt I was missing any information or that the author was eluding to anything previously disclosed in The Keeper.

If anything, this book made me want to go back and read The Keeper too. I want more of this pitch-black dark evil, small-town survival horror, throwing it way back to old-school 80s horror paperback vibes but with modern twists. Langan's style reminds me very much of King in the way that the characters take the lead in unraveling the horror...The Missing is all about what will these people do as they face this unspeakable evil instead of all the focus being on unleashing hell on cardboard cutouts of people the reader doesn't really care about.
I recommend this book to fans of Robert McCammon's Swan Song, James Newman's The Wicked, and Stephen King's The Tommyknockers
20 s Phil1,998 207

Langan's second novel, a loose sequel to The Keeper, demonstrates her growth as an author as this is much stronger. While the events in The Keeper concentrated on Bedford, this takes place in the next town over, the affluent Corpus Christi. Lois Larkin, our main protagonist (loosely), takes her third grade class on a field trip to Bedford, but upon return, one of her students is missing. That stated, Langan gives us lots of backstory to flesh out the characters before this happens. In fact, The Missing reads as a slow burn, with lots of character development, before the nasty events start to add up.

The missing student, the son of the CEO of the great hospital in Corpus Christi, is a cruel, somewhat stupid boy, who has been held back for two years already in school. He heads off from the other children and finds something deep in the forest where the group went. Somehow (and this is never really explained, but I can roll with it), he uncovers some bones that are infested with a strange plague/virus, one that gathered strength due to the chemical fire in the previous volume; it seems the sulfur give it virulence. What does the virus do? Well, it makes people something zombies.

Langan gives the old zombie trope some fresh air here. Her zombies (well, at least some) think and in fact can read minds. This reminded me of Brian Keene's work, but I will not go into detail to avoid spoilers. The pacing is much better than her first novel, although it still drags in spots, and the foo is much nastier. Take a small town, drop in a horrible virus, and see what happens! Overall, I really d this and will definitely check out some more of her work. 4 ghoulish stars!! horror19 s Tressa 543

My gosh Sarah Langan really knows how to hook a reader! I could not put this book down, and even woke up early this morning to finish it. I haven't read The Keeper (yet), but I have read Audrey's Door, and one area of Langan's skill as a writer is her character development. She's currently one of the best out there. Some writers don't give enough detail to make a character real, others bog down the prose with constant details to try to create a character out of nothing, but fail. Langan knows the right balance to give her characters personalities without boring the reader. She can tell you all there is to know about a character through a simple act and a few thoughts floating around in the character's head.

A teacher in Corpus Christi, Maine, takes her elementary school class on a field trip to a neighboring ghost town. One boy is left behind, and this boy uncovers an evil from before the time that men stood upright. Thus starts an airborn plague through Corpus Christi that mimics tuberculosis symptoms, but eventually turns a person into a black-eyed zompire ( my new word?) with a taste for flesh and a yearning to run on all fours. The reader comes to know a large portion of the townsfolk through how they experience and deal with this evil.

When I first started The Missing, my heart sank when I thought it was going to be another drab horror novel where a group of brave and not so brave people battle together to fight and bring down an evil entity. Oh, my fellow readers, it is not that at all.

My blog review:

Sarah Langan has done it again: kept me up till all hours of the night with a story that grabbed me—by the throat, as is usual in Ms. Langan's case. The Missing is somewhat of a sequel to her debut novel, The Keeper, a story about another small town in Maine that battles its own evil.

Lois Larkin, a spurned ex-fiancee who moved back to town to care for a sick relative and stayed on in her untouched teenage bedroom, takes her third grade class on a field trip to a neighboring ghost town. A troubled student refuses a field trip buddy, and is accidentally left behind when the bus pulls away. When he wanders into the woods he is beckoned and then infected by an evil so ancient it existed before humans stood upright.

The infection mimics symptoms of tuberculosis: fever; wet, labored breathing; fatigue. The sickness is airborn, and soon the hospitals are filling up, the schools are closing, and the townies are turned into "zompires," returning to their homes, businesses, or anywhere else they need to go to feed and settle old grievances. I say zompires because they're some kind of zombie/vampire mutt; mutt being the perfect word since they tend to run faster on all fours.

What Langan is best at is creating an entire life for a character in a walk to get the paper, in a lisp and a forgotten lunch, in a memory that haunts any hour of the day. There are no throwaway characters in Langan's fiction. Every character, no matter how infrequently they appear in the story, has a tale to tell.

Sarah Langan has been compared to Edgar Allen Poe and Peter Straub because of the deft way she has of slowly building suspense for her dark stories and carefully crafted characters. Although Langan's stories can get pretty gorey, her dark fiction puts me in the mind of Shirley Jackson, whose introverted characters made The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle the gothic classics they remain today.

Langan has written three novels: The Keeper (2006), The Missing (2007), and Audrey's Door (2008). The Keeper was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award; The Missing and Audrey's Door won Bram Stoker Awards. The odds are good that Ms. Langan has a long and successful career ahead of her.horror vampires zombies15 s Amanda M. LyonsAuthor 58 books157

I think my only real problem with Langan based on her first two novels is that while she does a fine job of setting up the plot and establishing characters she seems to lose the thread of her own book toward the end. I can honestly say I enjoy her premises and even many of her characters but they don't seem to warrant the same attention from the author by the end of the book. Where the events and characterization are great at the beginning and in this book even the middle the end is loose, rushed, and often riddled with actions which don't match the characters and events that seem out of true with the flow of the story.

I think this does her quite a bit of harm in terms of the consistency of her books for readers. In fact because of this sort of issue with The Keeper the first book in this series I nearly gave up on her as an author. With The Missing she does a much better job of honing the plot and the action through most of the book is tight. I only wish she hadn't rushed the ending and sort of listlessly handled some of the characters fates leaving their actions and situations feeling a bit hollow. 9 s Steve846 257

In The Missing, the reader is introduced to small, affluent Corpus Christi, a neighbor to the gritty across the tracks Bedford, which was destroyed in Langan's earlier novel The Keeper. That said, it isn't necessary to have read The Keeper. I was only so-so on that one, but there were a number of stretches in it that suggested that Langan was, as a writer, a considerable cut above the norm for the genre. (However, the return visits to the town are pretty creepy, and left me wanting to revisit the earlier novel.) The story is told through a number of different characters, but primarily, through attrition, becomes the story of Fenstad and Meg Wintrob. Fenstad is the local psychiatrist, Meg is the librarian. On the Eve of Destruction, their marriage is in trouble. How Fenstad holds on to his humanity, while defending his family, and battling his own demons, makes for the most fascinating thread in the novel.

The cause of all this distress, seems a bit thin and unexplained, considering the havoc to come. On the other hand, there is something so visceral and horrific about the little boy's discovery in the woods that explanation seems unnecessary. Bones. Blood. Death. That's probably all you need to know or understand. And if you recall, the details were not great when Romero's first zombie lurched onto the screen. Sometimes less is more.

Anyway, the days go by for Corpus Christi, and what initially seems troubling, people getting sick, acting strange, etc.,turns into something far more deadly. Langan, who has a medical background, employs her knowledge of disease and symptoms very effectively - without ever overdoing it. The Missing are never really missing, but they are different. I'm still not sure what to call the "things" in the book: were-zombie-vampire-things? Whatever they are, what is more interesting is what, beyond the great hunger they feel, motivates them: Anger, Hatred, Resentment. How Langan uses such destructive emotions for her horror was something I noticed in her earlier novel. It makes for effective and intelligent horror, no matter the splatter (and there's plenty of that). These destructive emotions, however, are what Langan seems to be really focusing on, the kind of emotions that find a home in a collective intelligence that one might call Legion.
fiction horror-and-dark-fiction6 s DeAnna KnipplingAuthor 164 books270

This book wore me down.

It seems the author wanted me to look down on her characters, to see their flaws and understand that, collectively, the human race should really just...go. Be done. Goodbye.

I get the urge, but it is *tiring* to read about. I felt a constant sense of distance from the characters, nobody to root for, not really anyone to hate, just people to look down upon.

And then the ending, which didn't. It made me more tired.

I just...it's hard to make an effort to "" a book this. Yes, it's probably honest--collectively, the human race is a train wreck that's destroying the planet. But I can't "" this book.

The first book in the series, The Keeper, that I could get behind. But this one wipes me out.nightmare-magazine-s-top-100-horror6 s Pat9 2

This novel began with a completely improbable set-up, which tested my willing suspension of disbelief, and dragged forward from there. The writing is very simple (think Goosebumps for grown-ups), the plot is standard zombie-movie fare, and the characters are flat and unable. I read this book because it was highly recommended (on the cover, inside flap, etc.) by horror authors that I admire - what a mistake. I can't help but think that someone slipped P Straub a few bucks to endorse this novel. The women are weak, the men (except for a token Mexican boy of virtue) are strong/crazy, and no one seems to react the way they should in any given situation. Not to mention that most residents of this upscale Maine town act Jerry Springer-fodder straight from the trailer. If you're looking for zombies or the apocalypse, you'd do better to check out King, McCammon, Straub, and many others.5 s Fishface3,161 234

After seeing that Peter Straub raved about this one, I had to check it out, but it was kind of disappointing. The story moved right along and kept me turning the pages until the end, but overall it was just another mysterious-infection-turns-everyone-into-cannibals story. The horror wasn't nearly horrifying enough for my taste. The characters did build up some depth as we proceeded, but the author put me off them from the get-go by using what I think of as the Updike Gambit: describing people completely in terms of their raggedy nail polish and speech impediments, and then telling you much later that they have good points, too, and that they love each other terribly, although by then it's too late for the reader who thinks of them only as badly dressed and spraying spit whenever they talk. I don't think I'll read the rest of this series.fiction horror5 s S.A.Author 44 books91

Back when I spent too much time over at Jezebel, there was a discussion about the new wave of female horror authors.I decided to buy three books by highly recommended authors: Come Closer by Sara Gram, The Harrowing by Alexandra Sokoloff, and this atrocious mess.

Here's what I wrote back in 2009. I still stand by this review. I am welded to this review.

Ever encounter a horror novel where you decide if every character in the book perishes you'll cheer "yippee"?

Welcome to "The Missing".

Everything sounded promising. The book won a Stoker award. The author has a masters in creative fiction. A few well-respected and frequently-read authors drooled in profusion over Langan's craft.

Say what?

The immensely talented and always readable Peter Straub should feel ashamed for recommending Langan. His novel "Floating Dragon" soared light years ahead of "The Missing". Kind of him to recommend a fellow novelist but please, recommend one who deserves the praise.

The novel staggered along imitating a bad soap opera centering around a vague supernatural element of supposedly ancient origins. Somewhere toward the last pages Langan decides to throw in a generic sentence or two to sum up the oh so nasty entity. Talk about lazy.

The characters act so conflicted they sound they emerged from a bad Jerry Springer episode. If I lived in this emotionally ugly Maine town, yes sir, I'd want a supernatural entity to wipe it from the face of the earth to spare anyone else from experiencing the horribly twisted people infecting the place.

Perhaps Langan should refrain from attempting horror and instead craft emotionally-torn soap operas. She excels in creating shallow female characters (shame on her) and cookie-cutter, dominate males. What Langan does not excel at is creating a truly chilling mood. Blood-splattered deaths, mind-control and hungry creepy-crawlies do not signify quality horror.

4 s Kelly Roll946 6

A small town becomes infected by a sentient malevolence which infects everything in the form of a viral infection either immediately killing or changing its host. If the host survives it becomes very mean and very…hungry. The initial infection occurs when the fourth grade teacher, Lois Larkin, takes her class on a field trip to the neighboring town abandoned after an industrial fire. While there the teacher loses the class’ “troubled” child. She is so heartbroken over being duped by her loser boyfriend that she neglects to notice that her high maintenance kid doesn’t come back from the field trip. The child encounters a voice which then infects him via an animal bite. The child, in turn, begins to infect his classmates.
Meanwhile a parallel storyline involves the local shrink, his cheating wife and their daughter.
What Langan does well are the descriptions of a small town and it’s residents that are so wrapped up in themselves that they don’t initially even notice the disappearance of animal life, their neighbors etc. The dawning realization that something is seriously wrong and the characters attempts to stay alive while still dealing with feelings of guilt, betrayal etc within a family kept me up reading this book way past bedtime.
What I found lacking was any sympathy for Lois Larkin. I found her whiny and passive so her transformation and subsequent major role in the book felt a little weak to me. I also found the descriptions of how the outside world reacted to the crisis, basically the government abandons the town, could have been beefed up a bit. There were also a couple of characters that the changed ones left alone and for the life of me I could not figure out why. Their food sources were runnin glow after all so why leave the police chief alive and running madly through the streets at the end of the book? A small detail I know but bothersome.
Overall though this one was a page turner and it good to see another girl playing in the old boys graveyard!

3 s Paulo "paper books only" Carvalho1,262 65

It's more of 2,5 stars but since Goodreads is against half things I will give 3.


I will start from the beginning...

This story is a psychological thriller with horror influence for the most part. The last one hundred pages it turn to a Zombie Apocalpyse with Crazy-People Narratives. That was it. The last hundred pages are the reason I am giving 3 stars instead of 2. That and the innovation in zombies. In this book zombies are not the same as other books. They are a collective hive ( Stephen King's Cell) with a leader that remains a individual conscience and at the same time a collective conscience. A virus with a brain. Quite good. I really feeling Sarah Langan gives us with this book as we don't know nothing about the outside world of Corpus Christii village. What is happening to the world? What is happening in the nearer villages? What are the CDC and army doing? We don't know!

We've got some good characters. We met Lois Larkin, a school teacher who just broke off her engagement (not for own choise) and the marital life of Meg and Fendstad. And at the end we've got Danny the brother of the one who start it all

Another interesting thing was the narrative that at times becomes ramblings of thoughts of crazy people. Unreliable narrators.

My main problem is the closeness of this kind of writing with Stephen King. Unfortunally I really didn't get it. Most talks were one sided and at times they just felt wrong reading. Maybe its me but, this review is mine, right?

The other problem with this book was the lenght. There was entire chapters that could have been cut off, or at least halved, mainly the first two hundred pages.

The ending... I enjoyed but that the same time I was... what a heck? All for this? No insight on the world? Is going to be a third novel with the survivors? Maybe a third novel is on the horizont...

Another star for Sarah Langan that make me wanna puke, literally, is a particular disturbing scene of a killing of a baby rabbit...03-stars 2011_to_2015_read genre_horror ...more3 s Tanja L119

All the characters are very flawed, but very well-drawn and vivid. Without them, the story would be just run-of-the-mill virus/zombie/ancient evil novel. What was interesting to me was their reactions to the this outbreak of evil and how, often, they themselves were the instrument of their own destruction. Warning, it is a rather bleak story.2 s Osman171 9

This book was in many ways a disappointment. I started with high hopes because the writing was vivid and at first seemed admirably taut as we are introduced to a well rounded character Lois, taking her young charges out into a spooky wood for a field trip. Unfortunately the more I read the more problems developed.

One major issue is the amount of characters and the devotion to describing them- there are so many introductions and so many pages detailing each individual back-story that the plot is forgotten and confusion sets in about which one the author is now describing. Sometimes whole chapters are devoted to character issues (The House Divided pp. 146) that have no apparent connection with the plot and are dull distractions at best. Frankly it seems self-defeating; the more time she spends writing about the characters the less I am interested in them and paradoxically the less distinctive they become. The author employs the `stupid name' gambit for added memorability: one of the leads is call Fenstad Winthob; another labours under the name Alfred Sanguine- no- those won't do.

All this makes for slow going, the plot when it surfaces is confused: a boy gets killed apparently (I thought that racoons ate him) but then he seems to appear as a ghost and then as a corporeal boy scavenging for food.

Then there are the plot `howlers': The woods of Bedford (the source of the weirdness) is only a `few miles' (easy walkable distance- many characters do so) from the town where all the characters live- and yet the kids who go there on a school trip: "...had never seen anything this before."

Towards the middle of the book when half of the towns children are running wild in these woods no one in the town seems to have noticed, certainly not the main characters who sit around getting angry with each other over boyfriend troubles.

Langan seems to have a problem visualising time as well as distance. When one girl is being rushed at (pp 142):

"The distance closed Ten feet. Eight feet. Five feet. Displaced wind rushed against her as her mind fired off segmented thoughts a string of firecrackers. What dark eyes you have she thought, and then: the better to swallow you with my dear. And: rah rah team! And finally: run. Run. RUN!"

....So a mad man is RUNNING at you, when he's 5 FEET AWAY (about 2 arm lengths) she thinks all those things and then she turns around and runs (successfully, for a while) away- WHAT!, has time stood still or something?

There are practical issues- how does one character, who- the day before- has been beaten up, thrown against a wall and broken an ankle (full plaster cast), make love enthusiastically and drive a car without complaint?

The author's writing is generally of a high standard yet some dialogue is improbable, one character says: "He didn't walk a man"- is this really what someone would say? Some verbs seem wrong too: would a piece of china chipped off a plate really `cruise' past someone's ear as though at leisurely pace?

Unfortunately these drawbacks led me to abandon the book. I think the author needs to focus more on the story- a good editor might help. 2 s Caryn92 1 follower

After reading "The Keeper" I wasn't expecting too much from this book, but I'm glad I read it. Scary, tense, creepy, vile - everything I in a horror novel! And I don't think you have to read the first book to enjoy this one - it pretty much stands on its own (there's a couple of references to characters from the "The Keeper" and a few familar names, but I don't think you would miss anything if you just read "The Missing" by itself).horror2 s Steph Zima4

I really d this book. It was an easy read and I couldn't really put it down. This book is great for those who "28 days"-type of stuff. There were a lot of little stories within the main story that painted a great picture of the characters. Quick read...2 s Tom174

Usually, sequels to original novels rarely live up to their predecessors, but this follow-up to Langan's first novel The Keeper had a much more believable story-line, and was far scarier.

The post-apocalypse within the small towns of Bedford and Corpus Christi, Maine, reminded me of The Walking Dead, although the infected inhabitants of these two towns were closer to the Spanish REC series, where the zombies can sometimes speak through demonic possession.

But as other reviewers here note, Langan has trouble bringing her stories to an effective conclusion, and although it appears Bedford & Corpus Christi's pandemic has spread across the entire globe, that suggestion is only hinted at, and you're uncertain if either of the last two characters fleeing their catastrophic neighborhoods in a Mercedes are infected carriers.

This story leaves a LOT of unanswered questions behind, but it's still a spooky, atmospheric tale of Armageddon.1 Shyne Pointon2

This is my favourite book in the whole world of writing.
I got my copy from the local dump. It's gold to me. Ive read it cover to cover about five times.
If I had the chance to wipe my memory just to read this book for the first time again I would. There's nothing I've yet found that stirs up quite the same feelings that I feel reading this book.
This book illuminated the topic of viruses and things that go bump in the night a lighthouse amongst an ocean of zombie virus books that fail to even rouse my interest.
It's suspense as the story develops just wraps me every time.
Pure gold.1 MichaelAuthor 19 books80

Easiest 5 Stars of the year. Vicious and gory, but full of humanity and delicately woven emotion. Langan has a knack for characters: she presents archetypes and puts us instantly in their head and allows the characters themselves to reveal their individuality through flaws and desperation and dashed dreams. This is the horror genre at its apex. 1 We All146 1 follower

C'è forse molto del primo King, ma evitandone la prolissità superflua. Un virus che è metaforico e che ci tocca più da vicino rispetto a quanto sembra. Lettura che consiglio1 Carissa30 2

Amazing follow up to The Keeper. I'm so impressed by this author!1 Darren35

3.5 stars1 Vince LiagunoAuthor 14 books71

It’s always a pleasure as a reader to stumble upon an exciting new voice in genre fiction; it’s an even greater pleasure when that first-time author proves their debut was no fluke. That’s exactly what Sarah Langan accomplishes with her sophomore release, The Missing. And, as one delves into Langan’s lush, lyrical prose and a chillingly insidious evil that once again threatens a skillfully drawn ensemble of characters, we’re buoyed by the fact that this is a writer who actually gets better with each word that flows from her blood-soaked pen. King and Straub and Koontz before her, Langan proves that she’s no one-hit wonder and is in this for the long haul.

Read the rest of the review here.

1 Caitlin702 73

This is a sequel to another book, The Keeper, which I haven't read. Fortunately, that doesn't really matter & didn't keep me from enjoying this one.

This is a pretty standard horror novel - a mysterious infection takes over a small town in Maine, turning its inhabitants into flesh-eating, well, zombies. It's grim. It's dark. It's gross. It will make you go, "Ewwwww." Exactly what you want from a horror novel.

The influence of Stephen King is all over this book, but I that Ms. Langan definitely has her own voice. This is a quick read that just might give you nightmares - especially now as we head into flu season.20091 Pete155 2

I'd been meaning to read this and the other books mentioned in this 2008 NYT article, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/boo..., which proclaims a new generation of women writing quality horror fiction. "Shelley's Daughters," reads the headline. "The Missing" is not a promising start, but I'm holding out hope for Elizabeth Hand's "Generation Loss," which I will probably read at some point between now and 2020.
Langan's book is highly derivative--mysterious virus spreads, converts people into zombie/vampire savages, etc.--and offers no insight into anything other than, perhaps, the importance of avoiding an Oxycontin addiction in such trying times. It'd probably make a cool HBO mini-series, though.2011 usa1 SamanthaAuthor 33 books31

This is the first book by Sarah Langan that I've read, and I really enjoyed it! I saw her on a panel at Stoker Con this year, and I really wanted to check her out. I had NO IDEA until I bought this book that it was number two in a series, but honestly? Not having read book one did nothing to deter my interest or understanding of book two. Would it have been helpful? Maybe, but I did just fine without it!

I loved her slow burn build up, and how everything fell into place. The characters were all layered and interesting, and her big bad really got me. All in all, I just had a great time reading this and can't read to read more from her in the future!ahhhhh-monsters horror kindle ...more1 Gail165

To sum it up, Awful. That is the only word to discribe this author's writing style. Every single character in the book was unable and dispicable. Even children were written about in such away that they deserved what that got. Not a single able character to be found in the whole book. The one "nice" person in the book was written as weak and to be taken advantage of because of niceness is weakness. This is definately NOT an author that I will read again. If the author was aiming for dark, what was the end result was completely unable. I can sum this book up in another word, Yuck. apocalyptic awful cringe-worthy ...more1 Regina240

Though the premise interested me greatly, the execution left me wanting. There were moments that had me turning pages but the only reason I actually finished the book was sheer willpower, to "make myself" keep reading, especially once I reached the half-way point, just to see if it was going to finally get going and keep going. I've read other apocalyptic-style stories that were far more gripping and far less horror-for-the-sake-of-horror. Enough said, I'm moving on to something more interesting ...2 s Bellafiga16

The Missing is simply a terrifying and deeply affecting novel from Sarah Langan. I suggest not reading it after dark and staying away from anyone with a cough during the reading! To me the book combined many elements from the William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist and those parts were effective and deeply creepy. I await a sequel. I wanna see what Lois Larkin and her babies get into next!

Happy Nightmares!1 Charlene Smith63 5

Before reading 'Virus', I'd never heard of it, or its author. From the first page, though, it felt familiar somehow. By page 30, I was thinking, "This feels Stephen King." By page 50, I was thinking, "This feels 'The Tommyknockers'." And it did! Langan writes vintage King, which is a plus for me.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Fast paced, entertaining, a bit gory... a good read all round.1 Amber Camp1 review

Autor del comentario:
=================================