Third time a couple came to us, claiming that their daughter had been kidnapped by the Homesteaders. Again, we got a warrant, went in, and there was no sign of her. In fact, the parents themselves disappeared. The phone number they gave us was disconnected, the address false.” Stewart breathed deeply. “I’m still hoping that one was a setup. But it’s more than possible that someone made them disappear.

I was so hopeful when this book started. The premise was fantastic. Two couples go to Burning Man and ended up taking some drugs and having fun. Two days later, they woke up and one of the girls, Joan, is missing. Their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. All of the other people at the festival disappeared.

They go back to campus just to find out that not only had Joan disappeared, but every trace of hers had been erased – starting from online presence to her things in the dormitory.

Her dorm mate gets killed the next day.

Police are not trusting anyone.

I was so excited about what the mystery could entail – were they transported to a different reality? Were they still dreaming during Burning Man? Was Joan really kidnapped? Was the government out to get them? Who would have such power as to “erase” someone?

The disaster of this book it’s that it turned out to be a religious cult that Jane was a part of that wanted their stray member back to … ** DRUM ROLL ** procreate.

The book features such horror tropes as staying in a group:

“We should probably stay together. There’s safety in numbers.”
“It’d be harder to get all of us if we were spread out,” Reyn said.

And some nice gruesome murders – stabbing mostly.

The cultists are run-off-the-mill and I think at one point even the author kinda figured it out how cliché it all sounds:

As tenuous as Reyn’s connection might be, he fully believed that Father and his followers were taking her to that nature preserve, to that ranch with a cross painted on the canyon cliff above. The notion rang true to him, and his mind had already begun concocting a scenario where that painted white cross was a secret symbol indicating that the ranch below was a stop on an underground railroad for religious fanatics, a safe haven for abortion clinic bombers, child-molesting polygamists and weapons-hoarding sect leaders

I have to be fair and say I liked the ending where they faced “a group of silhouetted figures standing there holding hands” and got out unscathed.

Since it’s Bentley Little, there has to be a reference to Arizona, the Mojave Desert and some forgotten worshipping ritual. It’s an OK book but I don’t think I’ll re-read it anytime soon for spiritual enlightenment.