Last Seen

Castellani blends true crime tropes with magical realism in his convoluted latest (after Leading Men). Across the U.S., dozens of young men’s deaths by drowning have been attributed by crime buffs to the Smiley Face Killers. Among the supposed victims are Vermont college student Caleb Aldrich, who goes missing in 2007 after a date with a man he’d met online; Michigan wrestler Matthew Cardullo, who disappears in 2020 while dating a girl whose friends warned her against his controlling behavior; Bostonian Steven Donovan, who disappears in 2018 while having an affair with his married employer; and Leo Ridgeway, who disappears in 2016 Minneapolis while dealing with drug addiction and thinking he might have schizophrenia. In chapters from the four men’s perspectives, Castellani traces their fates, showing how and why they each drowned in a different river, as well as their ability to communicate with one another in the afterlife and watch over those who were important to them at the time of their deaths. Just as the characters are trapped between the living and dead, the novel is suspended between the expectations of a thriller plot and its literary ambitions, and doesn’t deliver on either. It’s a mess. Agent: Janet Silver, Aevitas Creative Management. (Feb.)