On an August day on the remote Kamchatka peninsula of Russia, two young girls go missing. Their disappearance shocks the close community, and a sense of unease spreads when the police are unable to find any leads after weeks of searching.

DISAPPEARING EARTH is told like a series of closely connected short stories. Each chapter is one month further removed from the disappearance of these two young sisters, and each chapter focuses on a different woman in the community. It's much like the structure of THERE THERE, especially as the interconnected nature of the community becomes apparent.

The most surprising and important part of this story, to me, is the way the focus slowly shifts from the fear and panic surrounding a pair of missing white girls to the pain and anger of the local Even community - the people indigenous to the area - as they witness the lengths the police go to, and how this was not the approach when an Even teenager went missing a few years earlier.

Writing-wise, this book is excellent. Each chapter has a unique voice, and I felt that I began to know the contours of the location and the community as I began to see characters recur in successive chapters. The sense of foreboding in this book lingered even after I had finished it, and I think I will have these characters on my mind for some time to come.