What do you get when you mix a pathological liar, a decades-old kidnapping case, and a husband-wife magician team? Only the tip of the iceberg of Albert Shin’s new thriller Disappearance At Clifton Hill. Set on the Canadian side of Niagra Falls, this atmospheric mystery lends itself to comparisons with True Detective with a dash of Twin Peaks.
30-something Abby (Tuppence Middleton) returns home to Niagra Falls to combat the sale of her mother’s motel, The Rainbow Inn. Her sister, Laure (Hannah Gross), is much more willing to let the deal go through. Abby stays in the motel as all this is happening, and on the first night, she finds an old photograph that triggers a disturbing memory. While fishing at Clifton Hill with her family, Abby sees a young boy with one eye get kidnapped by a man and a woman who then put him in the trunk of their car.
“…almost immediately becomes entrenched in a mission to discover what happened to this boy.”
Abby almost immediately becomes entrenched in a mission to discover what happened to this boy. She goes to the police and realizes there was never even a missing person report filed. Then after looking through microfiche at the library, Abby finds that a young man’s suicide is reported at around the time that the kidnapping happened. During her search, she meets Walter Bell (David Cronenberg), a member of The Diving Bells, a family group that performed daredevil stunts but also search-and-rescue missions of The Falls.
Bell is not convinced that what the paper says happened to the boy, Alex Moulin, is true. He has an alternate theory that involves the business and land magnate, Charles Lake III (Eric Johnson), who also happens to be the force behind buying the hotel. Oh, I forgot to mention that the boy who Abby saw getting kidnapped, is the son of a husband-and-wife magician team called The Magical Moulins.
"…on the first night, she finds an old photograph that triggers a disturbing memory"
