In the Darkness

It takes a community to raise a child, but what happens to that community when a child is lost?

The disappearance of Cadence Carter, a loving and ambitious girl just days from her high school graduation, rocks the small heartland town of Leviton, North Dakota. Strangers come together to do what they can to help authorities find the girl, even as her parents' relationship is falling apart.

“In the Darkness,” by award-winning journalist Tracy Frank, is a novel about finding hope in despair and a light in the darkness. Readers are calling the book about family, relationships, and the connections that tie a community together “heart-wrenching” and a “compelling read.”

The story is told, not only through the eyes of the girl and her parents, but also from the perspectives of police investigators, reporters, friends, neighbors, even the abductor and his girlfriend. Those who may have only known the Carters in passing, if at all, become inextricably entwined in the family’s ordeal despite, in some cases, attempts to remain professionally detached.

In an attempt to, in some small way, help the parents who have lost a child and the children who have been abducted, Tracy pledges to donate ten percent of her proceeds from the sale of “In the Darkness” to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.