Gone in the Night

The Story of the Springfield Three

Art imitates life in Springfield, Missouri, as former reporter Brian Brown visits his hometown in the early days of the pandemic to interview private investigator Booger McClain for a possible book about the area’s most famous missing person’s case. Nearly 30 years earlier, two young women who had just graduated from Kickapoo High School, along with the mother of one of the girls, disappeared without a trace. The search for the three missing women consumed the psyche of the community in the latter half of 1992 and garnered attention from the national press, but it was all for naught. The women were never found, and no one was ever charged with their disappearance.

Soon after meeting Detective McClain, Brown quickly learns that this case he was familiar with has haunted the quirky private investigator for three decades. What unfolds are the unnerving details of what are known and heartbreaking speculations of what must have happened. In the end, the investigators find reasons for hope as they grapple with their own limitations in an unforgiving world.

Included is an exclusive interview with Janis McCall thirty-one years after the disappearance of her daughter, Stacy.

A Story From The Heart

If you want to know the story of the three missing, this book is for you. Alan and Brian do a great job of weaving in the theories of what happened into the narrative of their fictional investigation. Highly recommend.

Boring and you can’t get past the rediculous detective named Booger

It’s very slow, first 3-4 chapters are pretty good but then gets into the fake “theory” part of the author and it goes south. I couldn’t finish it. A grown man that’s supposedly a stern and intimidating detective named Booger? Stupid. And it’s overly detailed almost like an Encyclopedia Brown book. Don’t waste a credit