The Body in the Woods: A Point Last Seen Mystery

Nick lives with his mother and his older brother Kyle. They have a middle class lifestyle. Nick is a biracial teenager, which leads to him feeling like an outcast in a largely white city and high school. Nick faces frequent racist microaggressions, such as women clutching their purses when they see him before realizing his mother is white.

Nick’s father died while serving in the Iraq War when Nick was four; now Nick spends a lot of time wondering whether his father would be proud of him. Nick’s mother keeps his father’s medal of honor in her dresser drawer and refuses to discuss the death. Because of this, Nick obsesses over what his father must have seen in the army, researching details surreptitiously on his computer. Hoping to follow in his father’s footsteps by joining the army, Nick values bravery, honor, and strength. He believes that the military will provide him with a place to fit in no matter what he looks like.

In the beginning of the novel, Nick hides his self-doubt and attempts to place himself as the center of attention, hoping to prove himself a hero in honor of his father. However, when he first encounters danger, Nick panics and flees; he spends the rest of the novel trying to make up for this response, and finally gets a chance to when he helps rescue Ruby from Becker.

Ruby McClure lives in a nice neighborhood and her parents are both doctors. She has her own car, several devices, and the best gear for SAR. Ruby is often overly prepared, bringing an extra jacket, or gloves—items Alexis doesn’t have access to financially and Nick wouldn’t think to bring because he’s not a planner.

Although the novel does not say this explicitly, Ruby has a mild form of autism spectrum disorder. She has obsessive interests, such as true crime and birding, dislikes being touched, has trouble connecting with others, and often feels like she must mask her true self by acting out a role. Ruby focuses on patterns and logic, and has a near-photographic memory.

Ruby’s unemotional approach to the murders initially upsets Alexis and Nick. Ruby senses that Alexis doesn’t want to be close with her but cannot figure out how to become friends or act in a way that Alexis will find acceptable. However, as the novel progresses, Nick and Alexis see how valuable Ruby’s scientific mind is to the investigation and bond with her when Becker decides to make Ruby his next victim.

Detective Harriman is in some ways a foil to Ruby. Though he is impressed by Ruby’s ability to remember so many details and recognizes her as an asset to the SAR team, he dismisses her hunch that Miranda’s murder is connected to the one in Washington Park. Relying on his years of experience as a detective rather than on the very unlikely details of this specific case, Harriman typically ignores the teens’ suggestions for how to proceed with the investigation. His caution is seemingly correct when Ruby’s jumping to conclusions leads the police to arrest the jogger with the dogs. Angry over the mistake, he chews out Ruby, Nick, and Alexis, making them doubt themselves and their investigative abilities.

However, when Ruby turns out to be correct about Becker, Harriman apologizes and admits that ignoring the teens’ was wrong. Despite being a minor character, he has a character arc, evolving from a tired investigator hoping to finish cases quickly and easily to one who is willing to check details he might have missed and rely on unlikely colleagues.

Serial killer Caleb Becker is an older white man who pretends to be a harmless birder. In reality, his binoculars are a strangulation weapon and his birding journal is a way to describe his victims without acknowledging that they are people. Becker’s outwardly benign appearance helps him lure in victims—all unhoused or otherwise marginalized young women. Pretending to be an outreach worker, he offers them helpful items for living on the street in which he has embedded GPS trackers.

Becker is a sociopath incapable of empathy; he views murder as a scientific process and uses the software tool he programmed for tracking birds to keep tabs on the young women he targets. An obsessive collector, Becker moved on from illegally gathering found feathers to displaying locks of hair from those he kills.

The SAR teams successfully rescue Bobbly Balog and George Hines. Bobby, who is not shown in the novel, is a 34-year-old man with autism spectrum disorder. Although another team finds him safe and sound, this success fades in the background as simultaneously Alexis finds the body of Miranda Wyatt.

In contrast, the rescue of George Hines gives the SAR teams a needed boost in the middle of the nightmarish serial killer investigation. A middle-aged man hoping to get some exercise in the park, George becomes disoriented and lost. Without supplies, he resorts to burning anything he can find to stay warm. When Nick finds George, the rescued man’s delight and the warm hugs he gives everyone symbolize the positivity that comes from teamwork.

Becker kills DeShaundra Young, Miranda Wyatt, and Tiffany Yee. DeShaundra, who is unnamed for most of the novel, is a young Black unhoused woman. Police initially decide that she is an adult—only Ruby realizes that DeShaundra must be a teenager based on her sweatshirt. Detective Harriman apologizes for not listening to Ruby—if he had, police would have linked her murder and that of Miranda Wyatt, identifying the pattern of killings sooner.

Miranda Young, a young white woman, is what the local unhoused community calls an “oogle”—a rich kid getting her kicks from pretending to be unhoused, using drugs and partying to avoid responsibility, but sleeping in her own bed at night. Ruby discovers that Miranda’s Facebook page shows her in her underwear hanging out in graffiti-covered rundown streets, and a unhoused man complains to Alexis that teens like Miranda vandalize public areas but the unhoused people who live there get blamed for it. Becker is surprised to learn that Miranda attended a fancy private school—he assumed that she was unhoused when he killed her.

Tiffany Yee, a young Asian American woman, is a runaway with substance use disorder who has trouble grappling with the embarrassment of being on the streets. She is ashamed that her brother’s friends saw her hunt for food in a dumpster; her attempts to find a job have been unsuccessful. In her desperation, she becomes easy prey for Becker.