Day's American debut features a pair of doubly deceptive disappearances for Sydney p.i. Claudia Valentine. The one she's taking money to investigate is that of 15-year-old Madalena Grimaldi, vanished from her mother's house ten days ago, though evidently returned since then to sneak some of her stuff out. Claudia traces her to an impromptu commune in the neighborhood of Darlinghurst, but it's too late: Madalena's disappeared from there, too--most likely, if her friends can be believed, she's gone literally underground. Meantime, Claudia's putting more energy into celebrating her mother's remarriage by tracking down her father, ten years missing. And again the disappearance is even more mysterious than it seems. Guy Valentine turns up almost immediately as a dead derelict, fallen into Rushcutters Bay, drowned, and long since cremated and forgotten--except by the menacing copper who tells Claudia she'd better drop her investigation into exactly how her father died. Claudia's narration, apart from the obligatory wry self-deprecation, is low-key and businesslike--which is more than can be said for her professional ethics, since she's constantly neglecting the girl she's supposed to be tracking down in favor of her much more interesting father. Gritty Australian cityscapes a plus.