Liz Moore's "The God of the Woods" opens with a disappearance: 13-year-old Barbara Van Laar vanishes from her bunk at an exclusive Adirondack summer camp in 1975. It's the second Van Laar child to go missing; her older brother Bear disappeared from the same woods in 1961.
Moore constructs the novel as a series of shifting perspectives across two timelines, and the architecture is impressive. Camp counselors, detectives, family members, and groundskeepers each narrate chapters, and each voice is distinct. The Adirondack setting is rendered with such detail you can smell the pine needles.
The mystery plotting is tight. Moore parcels out revelations with the discipline of a thriller writer, but her literary instincts keep the characters from becoming mere plot devices. The Van Laar family, old money clinging to relevance, feels real and complicated.
Where the novel loses momentum is in its middle third. With so many perspectives, some feel underserved. A subplot involving a camp counselor's romantic life doesn't carry its weight. But the final hundred pages are expertly constructed, and the resolution is satisfying without being neat.
A strong, atmospheric literary mystery. Moore continues to prove she's one of the most versatile writers working today.