The missing Christmas dinners bothered me before anyone had even reached the mountains. An entire town disappears on Christmas Day in 1893, leaving meals and belongings behind. It’s such a good premise: ordinary life interrupted, with no explanation for where everyone went. Blake Crouch gives that absence enough weight to make Abandon feel threatening long before we learn what happened there.
More than a century later, journalist Abigail Foster joins an expedition to the deserted Colorado mining town with her father, historian Lawrence Kendall. He left her when she was a child, so a remote wilderness trip is hardly the easiest setting for their reunion. Two guides and a couple interested in paranormal investigation accompany them. With a storm approaching and civilisation a long way off, their search for answers becomes increasingly dangerous.
I liked the way Crouch moves between the expedition in 2009 and the town’s final days in 1893. We meet the people whose disappearance has become a historical curiosity, then return to the visitors trying to make sense of what they left behind. That gives the mystery a different feeling. Those abandoned buildings once housed people with marriages, grievances, children and plans for tomorrow. Knowing them makes the empty town much harder to dismiss as an intriguing puzzle.
The setting does a great deal of the work. Snow, altitude and difficult terrain make the expedition feel precarious even before the human threats emerge. Crouch is very good at making distance matter. Being miles from help has consequences for an injured body, dwindling supplies and the choices available to someone who needs to escape.
Underground, the darkness and confinement become horribly convincing. I could have done with a little less time in some of those passages, but their discomfort is certainly effective.
It’s worth knowing that the paranormal suggestion in the premise may give you the wrong idea about the reading experience. The ghost hunters and deserted cabins create an expectation of supernatural horror, but much of the fear comes from what people are prepared to do to one another. There's a substantial amount of violence here, including domestic abuse, threats of sexual violence and graphic injuries. I wouldn’t describe it as a gentle mystery with a few eerie moments.
Abigail’s relationship with Lawrence gave me something to care about beyond the explanation for the disappearance. She has every reason to resent him, and his expertise can't make him trustworthy in the ways that matter to her. I appreciated that tension. A parent can have an impressive professional life while leaving their child with a very different account of who they are. Their shared danger complicates the relationship, but the years of absence still matter.
Among the historical characters, Joss and Gloria interested me most. Joss has a hard exterior and a capacity for loyalty that makes her difficult to reduce to her reputation. Gloria’s grief gives the nineteenth-century story some of its most affecting moments. The historical cast is large, though, and I occasionally wanted more time with individual people. A few become familiar through their suffering before we have much opportunity to know them otherwise.
My main reservation was the number of times the danger escalates. Crouch can write a tense escape, but another threat arriving just as the last one recedes eventually becomes a little predictable in its own way. I still wanted to know what would happen. I also wanted a few scenes to have room to settle before the next ordeal began. Some trimming would have made the suspense sharper and given the emotional consequences more space.
The gold running through both stories gives all this violence a depressingly recognisable motive. Wealth promises a way out, particularly in a community worn down by hardship, and people begin treating each other as impediments to getting it. The distance between the two periods makes that behaviour more striking. Equipment and circumstances change; the willingness to sacrifice someone else for personal gain remains familiar.
I found the eventual connection between the timelines satisfying, and the ending had more emotional force than the repeated chases might lead you to expect. Crouch brings the story back to the people who've been lost and the relationships damaged along the way. The title gains meaning as you read: Abigail carries her own experience of abandonment into a town defined by it.
For all the violence and the pursuit of treasure, my thoughts kept returning to the people who had expected protection from someone they trusted. That expectation feels painfully ordinary. In Abandon, it's also what leaves them vulnerable.
🏚️ Read this if you enjoy mysteries set in abandoned towns
❄️ A remote mountain expedition threatened by a blizzard
🕰️ Alternating historical and contemporary timelines
💰 Buried secrets and the destructive pursuit of gold
🔍 A century-old disappearance and a desperate fight for survival
⚠️ Contains graphic violence and domestic abuse.
Book Details
Abandon by Blake Crouch
Paperback ISBN
978-1035000036 — Pan paperback edition published in Australia on 28 May 2024.
Hardcover ISBN
978-1035001095 — Macmillan hardcover edition published in Australia on 9 January 2024.
eBook ISBN
978-1761268052 — Macmillan eBook edition published in Australia on 25 July 2023.
Audiobook ISBN
978-1761670756 — Macmillan Digital Audio unabridged audiobook published in Australia on 27 July 2023.
Genre
Thriller; Mystery; Historical Fiction; Horror; Adventure Fiction.
Subgenre
Historical Mystery Thriller; Wilderness Survival Thriller; Western Horror; Psychological Suspense; Dual-Timeline Fiction.
Tropes / Literary Threads
Vanished community; isolated mining town; remote expedition; approaching blizzard; buried treasure; historical secrets; estranged father and daughter; survival against the elements; concealed motives; greed and betrayal; grief; corrupted authority; alternating past and present narratives.
Publisher
Pan Macmillan — Pan publishes the cited Australian paperback; Macmillan publishes the hardcover and eBook; Macmillan Digital Audio publishes the audiobook. The original US edition was published by Minotaur Books.
Series
Standalone novel.
Formats Available
Paperback; hardcover; eBook; unabridged digital audiobook.
Audiobook Narrator
Soneela Nankani and Jennifer Jill Araya are credited for the cited Australian ISBN by Kobo and Google Play. Audible’s Macmillan edition additionally credits Timothy Jackson and Max Meyers.
Audiobook Length
Approximately 12 hours and 42 minutes — Kobo lists 12.7 hours for the cited Australian ISBN; Google Play displays 12 hours and 41 minutes. Unabridged English-language recording.
Original Release Date
7 July 2009 — original US publication by Minotaur Books.
Australian Release Date
28 May 2024 for the cited paperback ISBN 978-1035000036. The cited Australian eBook and audiobook editions were released in July 2023.
Page Count
480 pages — paperback ISBN 978-1035000036. The cited Macmillan hardcover also has 480 pages.
Where to Buy Abandon by Blake Crouch
📚 Amazon
Affiliate Disclosure
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. If you purchase through my Amazon affiliate links, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. I also encourage supporting Australian booksellers such as QBD Books, independent booksellers, and self-published authors whenever possible.
Danielle Robinson is a literary critic and writer whose
work explores literature through the
lens of atmosphere, memory, culture, and emotional experience. Holding a double degree in philosophy and theology, she combines academic insight with a deeply refined aesthetic sensibility shaped by more than three decades working across the creative industries as an internationally published, multi-award-winning makeup artist, fashion stylist, and interior stager.
She reads widely and rigorously, reading and reviewing more than 200 books each year as both an ARC reader and commissioned critic. Through Silk & Sentences, Danielle approaches literature as something immersive and lived with — not simply stories to consume, but works that shape the way we think, feel, and move through the world.
She writes from her semi-rural Queensland home, where she lives with Alex, her husband of 33 years, their dogs Oscar and Paige, and an ever-growing library of books.
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