The Girls Are Gone: The True Story of Two Sisters Who Vanished, the Father Who Kept Searching, and the Adults Who Conspired to Keep the Truth Hidden - Softcover

Michael Brodkorb; Allison Mann

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1634891651 ISBN 13: 9781634891653

Publisher: Wise Ink Creative Publishing, 2018

Synopsis

On the evening of April 19, 2013, Samantha and Gianna Rucki disappeared. Two of five children born to David Rucki and Sandra Grazzini-Rucki, the teenage sisters vanished in the midst of their parents divorce.
The girls father, David Rucki, worked tirelessly with law enforcement to search day and night for his two missing daughters, following every lead while raising three remaining children at home. Their mother, Sandra Grazzini-Rucki, used her newfound freedom to vacation around the world, abandoning her children. And as the investigation intensified, catching the attention of the media, Sandra also disappeared.

The Girls Are Gone is the true story of two sisters who went missing, the father who kept searching, and the adults who conspired to keep the truth hidden.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Brodkorb's reporting on the Samantha and Gianna Rucki case began with the Star Tribune in 2015. He is currently a columnist with MinnPost. A lifelong resident of Minnesota, Michael is also an experienced communication, public affairs, and research consultant. Allison Mann is a paralegal and has worked on the Samantha and Gianna Rucki case since 2012.

Review

True crime fans interested in stories of missing kids will appreciate the riveting reenactment of events surrounding the disappearance of two teen sisters who vanished amidst their parents' divorce in The Girls Are Gone: The True Story of Two Sisters Who Vanished, the Father Who Kept Searching, and the Adults Who Conspired to Keep the Truth Hidden. 
 
Most parents never stop searching for their missing child; but the intense feelings of these moments, days, and years are seldom captured as intimately as in this story, which features a countdown of events that begins with 497 days gone.
 
By focusing on the daily experiences and challenges of living under the gun with uncertain results from an increasingly despairing search, Michael Brodkorb and Allison Mann capture the moments that grabbed David Rucki's heart and mind, penning them in a way which audiences can not only understand and relate to, but in a manner that proves nearly impossible to put down.
 
True crime stories relate facts and events; but superior accounts grab the reader's heart. The Girls Are Gone achieves this as it portrays the bigger issues of parental responsibility, kidnapping, child endangerment, and legal investigations.
 
Another big plus: The Girls Are Gone isn't just narrated from the father's perspective. The authors met during the criminal trial surrounding the case. Allison worked at a law firm representing David Rucki while Michael was working for the Star Tribune at the time, covering the story as the case developed.  Their observations and input about these processes are invaluable as the story unfolds from different perspectives, adding a layer of reporting that explains and explores court procedures, kidnapping issues, and parental rights on both sides.
 
The result is far more complex than the usual singular individual's experience, offering a probe into a conspiracy to hide the truth and manipulate the lives of all involved as a courtroom case spirals out of control and divides a family.
 
As true crime and kidnapping stories go, The Girls Are Gone is head and shoulders above most others, probing a network of crime and the impact of hidden truths that will leave readers thinking long past the conclusion.
 
It took a village to gather all the information to write this book. The Girls Are Gone should be on the reading lists of anyone interested in not just true crime stories of kidnapped children, but accounts of desperation and the bravery of survivors who come forth to tell their stories to change the world.

- D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer 
  Midwest Book Review The Girls Are Gone By Michael Brodkorb and Allison Mann is an excellent true crime book. The two authors became acquainted in 2016; Michael a reporter and Allison representing David Rucki in court. This is a very involved book with lots of detail, including court transcripts, telling the whole story from start to finish, filling in some of the lesser known details about the case. This book reads like a crime novel but is far more horrifying, given that we know it is the truth. It is riveting and compelling reading but it will require some staying power. Loved it! I like true crime stories and this one is way above any other just because of the amount of detail and the way it was written; matter of fact yet drawing you into the web a step at a time. Fantastic book, I wish there were more like it.-Reviewed by Anne-Marie Reynolds for Readers' Favorite

Edition details

• Publisher: Wise Ink Creative Publishing
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1634891651
• ISBN 13: 9781634891653
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336