Just Jennifer

The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld

Naomi Cottle is known as “the Child Finder”; she helps families track down their missing children, never shirking from what she finds.  Once a lost child herself, Naomi was able to escape her fate and became a foster child and has mostly cut herself off from her past, though her foster brother Jerome often reaches out to her and hoping to have a relationship with her.  Naomi is hired to find Madison Culver, now eight, who disappeared three years ago when her parents took her to Oregon’s Skookum National Forest to find a Christmas tree.  As Naomi takes on this snowy expanse to find the child who literally vanished into thin air she searches for the baby of an autistic woman, she begins to think more about her past and what she lost and what she could gain if she could recover it.  In order to survive, Madison has created a “snow girl” personality and this story is intermixed into Naomi’s investigation.  With lyrical prose, inviting and interesting characters, and none of the usual tropes of psychological thrillers, this sophomore offering by Rene Denfeld will keep readers mesmerized and enthralled.