Prince of Lost Places is my second book by this author; the first book I read by her was The House of Gentle Men over 15 years ago. Yikes. This book has been languishing on my bookshelf for ages. (Trust me, it’s not an outlier, buying more books than I could ever possibly read is a thing.)

Martha Warden has kidnapped her six-year-old son, Duncan. She has her reasons. Her husband, David, tells the detective he’s hired to find her that “She’s sick. […] Her mind has left her. She is in no condition to be wandering around somewhere.”

Martha takes Duncan to a cave someone told her about. It’s on the Rio Grande, isolated, and although Duncan misses his father, the two sort of settle into a life in the wild. Martha has planned well, packing as many of the necessities as she could manage and setting her car on fire in the desert before she and Duncan set off in a rubber raft down the river.

We know something has happened, but Martha is slow to reveal exactly what that something is. Early on she tells us about Duncan’s friend, Linda, and then she tells us that “Linda has been dead for nearly three weeks.” Is Duncan responsible for her death? David? Why have they run away?

Then Andrew arrives on the scene.

The man I saw was tall and lanky, wearing tattered, faded jeans, desert boots and a T-shirt with a plaid shirt thrown over it. A knapsack was strapped to his back. He had a narrow, friendly face and tousled light hair, and as he knelt down he paused to scratch at a full beard.

Who is this man? He claims that he, too, is trying to figure some things out and while Martha doesn’t trust him at first, he turns out to be a good listener. Soon, they become a trio.

Prince of Lost Places is a quiet and thoughtful book about motherhood, love, guilt and grief. I suppose some people will be unhappy with the end, but I thought it was terrific.