Leaving Time/Jodi Picoult/405 pgs.

Jenna Metcalf, age 13, never stops thinking about her mother, Dr. Alice Metcalf, who went missing when Jenna was only 3 years old. At the time of Alice's disappearance, a tragic accident had occurred at the elephant shelter run by Alice, Thomas (Alice's husband), Gideon, Grace (Gideon's wife), and Nevvie (Grace's mother). Police are called to the shelter because Nevvie is found dead--it's assumed that she was crushed to death by one of the elephants. Alice is found unconscious at the shelter, taken to a hospital, and later disappears from the hospital--never to be found. Jenna can't believe her mother would abandon her, so she goes on the hunt to find her. She employs the services of Serenity Jones, a one-time famous psychic, who has fallen on hard times, and Virgil Stanhope, a jaded private detective who was one of the investigators at the time Alice went missing. The book is told in separate chapters in Jenna, Alice, Serenity, and Virgil's voices. It's a powerful technique, and keeps the reader guessing until the end. Highly recommended on several levels, one being the amount of fascinating information about elephants living both in the wild, and in captivity.