[i]Descent[/i] by Tim Johnston. I really like thrillers, but they're often a guilty pleasure read because they're often not particularly well written or memorable, they're like the fast food of novels where it's just fun to chomp through them. This one, though, has really lovely writing and is actually quite slow in a good way, and the characters very believable - even when they're being frustratingly self-defeating, it feels realistic.

While on vacation in the Rocky Mountains, Caitlin and her brother Sean go for a run. Sean is horribly injured. Caitlin goes missing. The family falls apart - and I feel like if the novel cut off at this point it could've still be pretty satisfying as one of those slow, poignant, angst-smothered contemporary lit things where the precise quality of everyone's misery is eloquently evoked. As I said, the prose in this is way better than the usual standard for thrillers. But about halfway through the thriller line of the plot starts really picking up as we return to Caitlin's perspective aaaaaand shit gets wild for a really fantastic ending.