Still Missing (Stevens)

Still Missing
Chevy Stevens 2010
St. Martin's Press
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250049513

Summary
On the day she was abducted, Annie O’Sullivan, a thirty-two year old realtor, had three goals—sell a house, forget about a recent argument with her mother, and be on time for dinner with her ever-patient boyfriend.

The open house is slow, but when her last visitor pulls up in a van as she's about to leave, Annie thinks it just might be her lucky day after all. Interwoven with the story of the year Annie spent as the captive of psychopath in a remote mountain cabin, which unfolds through sessions with her psychiatrist, is a second narrative recounting events following her escape—her struggle to piece her shattered life back together and the ongoing police investigation into the identity of her captor.

The truth doesn’t always set you free.

Still Missing is that rare debut find—a shocking, visceral, brutal and beautifully crafted debut novel. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
• Born—1973
• Where—Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
• Education—N/A
• Awards—International Thriller Writers Award
• Currently—lives on Vancouver Island, B.E.


Chevy Stevens grew up on a ranch on Vancouver Island and still calls the island home. For most of her adult life she worked in sales, first as a rep for a giftware company and then as a Realtor.

At open houses, waiting between potential buyers, she spent hours scaring herself with thoughts of horrible things that could happen to her. Her most terrifying scenario, which began with being abducted, was the inspiration for Still Missing. After six months Chevy sold her house and left real estate so she could finish the book.

Chevy enjoys writing thrillers that allow her to blend her interest in family dynamics with her love of the west coast lifestyle. When she’s not working on her next book, she’s hiking with her husband and dog in the local mountains. (From the author's website.)

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Book Reviews
Still Missing runs deeper than the chills it delivers, the surprises it holds and the resilience of its main character. Ms. Stevens makes Annie a strong, smart woman who won’t stop fighting to regain her sanity and equilibrium. She can’t come back until she knows why she was taken away.
Janet Maslin - New York Times

The strength of the novel lies not in its characters or insights but in a shrewdly calculated, suspenseful plot that uncorks one surprise after another.
Patrick Anderson - Washington Post

This debut novel has the power to shock and awe with its explosively frightening premise about a woman who is kidnapped by a stranger and held against her will for more than year. It starts with a very scary abduction. Annie O'Sullivan is a real-estate agent, and her captor comes for her at an open house. What happens to Annie during her captivity is heartbreaking, stomach-turning, outrageously immoral and frightening. Equally unimaginable is the catalyst for her kidnapping. This is one scary novel with a new twist on the classic kidnap and conspiracy story. Still Missing by Vancouver Island native and resident Chevy Stevens is sure to rock lovers of the thriller genre.
USA Today

Crackling with suspense this debut thriller stars Annie O'Sullivan, a young Realtor who recounts her year-long ordeal as a captive of a rapist she calls simply "The Freak." Her imprisonment, escape, and fraught reentry into ordinary life will have you glued to the page.
People

(Starred review.) Stevens’s impressive debut, a thriller set on Vancouver Island, pulsates with suspense that gets a power boost from the jaw-dropping but credible closing twist. In psychiatric sessions, Annie O’Sullivan, a 32-year-old realtor with a nice boyfriend and a demanding mother, describes her year-long ordeal as the captive of a rapist. The intense plot alternates between Annie’s creepy confinement, her escape, and her attempts to readjust to real life, from going to the bathroom when she wants to managing her own meals. Still, Annie knows that a large part of her soul is “still missing.” Her transformation from victim adds to the believability of the enthralling plot.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) On a sunny August afternoon, realtor Annie O'Sullivan is just about to end an open house showing when a friendly, nicely dressed man appears. What seems to be a lucky break is really just the beginning of Annie's yearlong ordeal. During sessions with her psychologist, Annie takes the reader back to her abduction and narrates how she struggled to survive during and after the horror. Since the reader is reliving the events through Annie's own retelling, the material can be tough to take. That emotional challenge is alleviated by Annie's flashes of humor and defiance. In her mind, once a victim does not mean one forever. Verdict: While there is physical danger in what Annie experiences, the suspense is in her psychological struggle. Author praise of this highly touted debut includes comparisons to Karin Slaughter and Lisa Gardner, and those authors' fans will like this thriller. While this may be a stretch, the "what would I do" aspect of the reading experience may make this a match for some Jodi Picoult readers as well. Highly recommended. —Jane Jorgenson, Madison P.L., WI
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Stevens’s blistering debut follows a kidnap victim from her abduction to her escape—and the even more horrifying nightmare that follows. One moment, Vancouver Island realtor Annie O’Sullivan is taking one last client, a quiet, well-spoken man with a nice smile, through the property where she’s holding an open house; the next moment, she’s being marched out to a van at gunpoint, unaware that it’s the last time for months that she’ll see the sky or breathe the open air. The man who’s taken her calls himself David; she calls him The Freak. And her ordeal over the next year, described in unsparing detail in a series of lacerating sessions with her psychiatrist, indicates that her name is a lot more accurate than his.... A grueling, gripping demonstration of melodrama’s darker side.
Kirkus Reviews

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Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Still Missing:

1. How would you describe Annie's character...especially those qualities that enable her to survive her ordeal at the hands of The Freak? How well might you have fared?

2. At some point during captivity, Annie begins to almost like The Freak. She goes to far as to admit that "sometimes he's kinda sweet." Although identifying with a captor is a known phenomenon—referred to as the "Stockholm Syndrome" in psychiatric parlance—how do those feelings develop in Annie?

3. Are the early parts of the novel, the sex scenes, too lurid for your taste—do you consider them sensational. Or are they an integral part of the plot, necessary for us to grasp Annie's tormented state?

4. Is "The Freak" a good name for Annie's abductor? What would you have called him? Describe him.

5. Chevy Stevens has written her book as a flashback, the present peering back into the past. We know at the outset, therefore, that Annie escapes her ordeal. Why might the author have structured her book in such a way?

6. David-The-Freak tells Annie that she is perfectly safe with him. There's a degree of ironic truth in his statement. How so? (Consider what happens when she escapes to freedom.)

7. Describe what Annie finds once she returns home—starting with her mother and the accident that took her father's and sibling's lives. Then there's the old boyfriend, Luke, as well as her best friend.

8. What prompts Annie to realize that her captivity was intentionally set-up by someone in her old life?

9. What is the significance of the title, "Still Missing"?

10. In all, does this book deliver? Were you held in suspense? Or did you find it predictable? Was the ending satisfying?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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