AMONG THE MISSING: An Anecdotal History of Missing Persons from 1800 to the Present

by Jay Robert Nash ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1978

Nash, who's previously dealt with hustlers, con men, and assorted desperadoes, here turns to a more problematic grouping: the vast numbers of folk who yearly topple into ""the chasm of the missing."" Despite police, FBI, search parties, posses, and private detectives, many are never heard from again--leaving the field wide open for ""sightings,"" fantastic rumors, and speculations on motives--all of which Nash indulges in. This batch includes explorers who ventured too far, fed-up husbands, amnesiacs, abducted children, victims of press gangs, embezzlers, clergymen, and more. The vanishing famous include those one might expect--Amelia Earhart, Aimee Scruple McPherson, mountain climber George Leigh Mallory, Michael Rockefeller, Jimmy Hoffa, and Judge Crater--as well as those, like Ambrose Bierce, Agatha Christie, and Sherwood Anderson, who in their life echoed their art. On the whole the obscure are more compelling: heiress Dorothy Arnold who walked down Fifth Avenue in her rose-strewn chapeau and never came home; the Polish priest in Bradford, England, who donned his hat and coat, muttered ""Now this has come. . . I must go,"" and walked out of his life; British Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett who wandered off into the Matte Grosso, Brazil's jungle-plateau, to search for the city of ""Z"" and never reappeared. Nash's format could be called encyclopedic, though haphazard is more apt, and he certainly has nothing new to contribute by way of clues. But the subject itself may draw sleuths and would-be-gones.

Pub Date: June 1, 1978

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1978

Categories: NONFICTION