The Feral Detective, a novel by Jonathan Lethem

The protagonist, a thirty-some woman named Phoebe, travels from New York City to Southern California to search for the daughter of a friend. The missing woman left her college dorm and cut off communication with her mother, and the only lead is her fascination with the singer-poet Leonard Cohen who died when the results of the presidential election of 2016 were determined. The shock of that election hangs over Phoebe as she enlists the help of a detective who specializes in such cases, and their search takes them far from modern Los Angeles to the city's wild edge of mountains and deserts among people who live off the grid.

Phoebe as the first-person narrator gives the reader an early sense of where the novel goes when she says "The story involves a missing person, and it could well be me. Or you or practically anybody." Or as the detective puts it, "Who's not missing?" It's a good question for anyone who had their assumptions about the American people and American politics shaken at that time.

The witty and talkative Phoebe contrasts with the laconic and mysterious detective, and the New Yorker cannot help expressing her wise-cracks even though she realizes they are falling on the unappreciative audience of the detective and the people living in Manson-like communes in the desert. Her comments, however, provide levity to an often tense story.

I enjoyed this book very much although, judging from the mixed reader reviews, many did not react so positively.