Customer Reviews

Without a Trace: The Disappearance of Amy Billig--A Mother's Search for Justice

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I always hate when a reviewer reveals things that you wouldn't want to know, so suffice it to say that this is one of the most amazing true stories I've ever read. I got to know very nasty bikers, stalkers and a bunch of creeps I would never want to meet in real life, but I'm also very glad I met Sue and Amy and the Billigs.

The book jacket doesn't mention one of the most important parts of the case, which is the 23-years of stalking that Susan endured while searching for her daughter. Yeah, they catch the guy, finally, but you won't believe who it is, and I'm not going to tell you! The trial is fantastically portrayed, and the prosecutors and their strategy are very well drawn. I love legal thrillers, and this beat most of the ones I've read before.
All in all, Without A Trace is a book that kept me reading from page 1 to the end, hardly able to put it down. It's also a cautionary tale that every parent and teenager should read.

I had seen this story in a documentary on A&E and on 20/20, and thought I knew a lot about it, but the book tells you so much more, and then you find out that a lot you saw in the documentary isn't even quite right. There is also a lot of important information that the authors found after the documentary had already come out.

My last word on this is you gotta read it to believe it!

This book clearly illustrates that fact is indeed stranger than fiction. Like peeling away layers of an onion, "Without a Trace" reveals the layers of horror Susan Billig endured while searching for her daughter. Greg Aunapu has cleverly assimilated this famous case into an engaging and spell binding story I simply could not put down once I started. From the ugly dark underbelly of the biker world, a cast of horrible characters comes alive which Susan Billig heroically confronts. This is ultimately a story about the human spirit, courage and everlasting hope that prevails in the face of evil.

As a reporter, I have written and read a lot of true crime stories over the years. While Sue Billig's search for Amy has filtered into the American consciousness through a variety of television pieces on Unsolved Mysteries and other news shows, no one has ever recorded the full, complex and mesmerizing story until now. No 5 minute news clip or 90 minute documentary could possibly convey the myriad bizarre complications that arise during the search for Amy, the effect on the family and the sheer amount of strange characters Sue confronts. If you thought you knew anything about this case, think again . No one else seems to have gotten it right. This is truely a modern epic on a grand scale, and Sue Billig is a modern day hero.
On a sheer storytelling level, the writing is straight forward and profoundly compelling, with great insight into the human heart. This true story has more twists and turns than most bestselling novels, the pacing is just right, and the characters are so well drawn you would think they're in the room with you. If this book had been published as a hardcover first, I have no doubt it would have received the attention it deserves, placing it in the top echelon of True Crime.

I am a True Crime addict and I remember watching the story of Amy Billig on "Unsolved Mysteries." Even though I had seen the story, I figured I would learn a lot more if I bought the book, so I did. I am a slow reader and usually it takes me months to read just one book. "Without A Trace" was different. This book kept me interested all the way through and I seemed to breeze through it. It is a very good read. I even read it in the bathtub while I was taking a soak!

Amy Billig was just 17 when she disappeared from Coconut Grove, Florida in 1974. Amy had planned to meet friends for lunch and was going to drop by her dad's art shop on the way. However there were some greasy, tattoed, leather-clad visitors who were also dropping by that fateful day. The forboding rumble of motorcycles going through town told people to heed their caution. It was the annual biker gathering again. When Amy didn't arrive at her dad's shop and never met her friends, Amy's parents, Sue and Ned Billig, knew something terrible must have happened.

Let me say that reading this book made me take a second look at mankind. I was angry as I followed Sue's relentless quest to find her missing daughter only to be taken advantage of by greedy, shallow-minded people such as the Glasser twins, who claimed to have Amy, and Hank Blair who tortured Sue Billig with sexually explicit telephone pranks about Amy for about two decades which lead to a lengthy court battle in the process. But through it all, Sue would do anything to find her daughter from searching into different tips, meeting up with and traveling with bikers such as the infamous Paul Branch who had claimed to have Amy, traveling to prisons to interview bikers who may have a clue, and even frequenting biker bars to search for her daughter.

Some of the images portrayed in this book make your spine shiver. How about picturing a pint-sized, middle-aged woman from a well-to-do life, clinging to a rough and rowdy biker while riding on the back of his motorcycle? How about picturing this woman mingling with dirty, tattoed, chain and leather-clad bikers armed with guns inside scudzy trailors cluttered with rusty auto parts, beer cans and cigarette butts? While these bikers are peeking out of windows fearing any vehicle that drives up, a biker couple can be heard having sex in the other room. Authors Greg Aunapu and Susan Billig do an outstanding job of taking us on the journey over the boundaries of safety and into the world of the bikers who are murderers, drug dealers and woman-beaters. After all, women are considered property and bikers give them away and pass them around to other bikers as such. As a female myself, this was difficult to read about. But I think I can safely say that I would do the same things that Sue did if my daughter went missing.

The most frustrating part (and indeed I feel for Sue and can relate to her frustration), is all the leads that fall dead. Unfortunately with just about every huge case, there are leads that are looked into and nothing comes of it. Therefore you've just wasted precious time. Poor Sue had to go through so much of this. Calls at all hours of the night, plane trips to places like Tulsa, Seattle and New Jersey on tips from bikers such as Paul Branch, investigations into strip bars where bikers usually make their "old ladies" work at; everything seemed endless. But Sue was relentless, taking every call to heart and jotting virtually every call down in her journal. Many leads brought people who said Amy was a biker girl who was drugged up and called "Mute" or "Sunshine." The tips came and came. She was at this particular market with wome Outlaw bikers buying soup and crackers. She was at this store in Seattle looking at health food. And it's truely amazing how many biker names come up in the search for Amy, from Paul Branch, to "Dishrag Harry," to "Creature." It seems endless.

I just have to give the ultimate kudos to Sue Billig for all that she had to go through in her search. She is the real model of strength that many women should strive for. She is inspiring in every sense of the word. When people told Sue to give up, she wouldn't. When people told Sue that Amy may be brainwashed and never the same, Sue didn't care. When there was any little hint that Amy may be in a particular place, Sue would dash there. If she needed to stand up to bikers, she would stand up to bikers and force herself to be unintimidated. Even cancer couldn't keep Sue down, nor her husband's tragic death. She is an obsessed mother determined to bring her daughter home. Some may think being that obsessed is a bad thing, but it is not. It makes you amazed at how the human spirit handles pressures when things get to be dangerous and life seems to crumble.

The description of the bikers and their hangouts and the places that Sue explored were absolutely fantastic. Every detail gets you right into the book and you are automatically sitting there suffering with Sue. You are riding on the back of a biker's motorcycle with nerves pumping through your body and the wind tossing your hair around. You smell the smoky air, the sweat and leather. You hear the rough voices and see the scowls and other facial expressions. You feel the rage and disappointment when pranksters exploit. And the hardest part through it all is that Amy always seems just out of reach somehow. There is always this feeling of not being able to get to her. I personally have had dreams like that and needless to say, it is tough on the emotions. Even in the end, Sue is still taken advantage of from Branch's "old lady," "Tootsie's" so called deathbed story, to British producers ordering Sue to engrave Amy's name on a headstone. The anger of it all!

But the question remains. Is Amy still alive out there? Is she dead? Is she tortured daily? Is she a drugged-up stripper? Is she pregnant? How did Paul Branch really know of Amy's appendix scar, or that she liked folk music? We may never know what ever happened to the carefree 17 year-old who loved life and was truly inspired by it. It was the simple things in life such as a sunset and the wind blowing in the trees that Amy loved. She was indeed special and very insightful. It was also a much different time. It was seemingly a more innocent time; at least away from the underworld of the bikers. But much has changed since 1974, and as the years progressed in this book, I could truly feel that nostalgic emotional feeling of the fact that Amy had been gone for so long as the times changed.

Although Sue spent 25 years searching for Amy, she had eventually found a way to bring that chapter of her life to a close even though she still mourns for her beloved daughter. Now her son Josh has kids of his own and she is able to channel her energy through them and see traces of Amy in them. The ending of the book was very fitting. It is a haunting passage that Amy wrote shortly before she was kidnapped and it shows the very essence of the wonderful young woman she was/is. It will leave you thinking for days after you finally put this book to rest.

Susan Billig is an amazing woman. When her beautiful, seventeen year old daughter turns up missing and is thought to have been kidnapped by a motorcycle gang, Sue Billig goes full force trying to find her child. Her tenacity and strength is unreal. I couldn't put the book down. Although after seeing Mrs. Billig on television many times, I know the outcome -- I couldn't help but wish the next page would say that she found her daughter and brought her home. There were times I was reduced to tears reading about what Mrs. Billig went through. Read it, you won't be disappointed.

This book will grab your attention from the very first page and not let you go until you have read to the end and closed the covers on the book.

You won't believe what Mrs. Billig went through, and what a heroic, amazingly dedicated mother she is.

What is most unbelievable and shocking about the story is not so much the very sad and tragic disappearance of Amy, but instead the constant stalking and harrassment **Mrs. Billig** went through! And yet she and her husband remained strong and true to the end.

If you want a book that you won't be able to put down, buy this one. But be prepared to cry and also to seethe with anger by the time you are done.

After reading a few pages of Without A Trace I knew it was a book I would inhale. So I got comfortable in my plane seat, and started to read. And read. And read. Missed the free coke and peanuts. I just let my eyes speed along effortlessly, the way good writing and good storytelling encourage you to do. The beginning especially, just sent the shivers. And it was only after 250 pages and the need to change location that I finally lifted my eyes. This is not usual for me. I usually get distracted by clouds. Anyway, I finished the book that night when I got home since I had to find out how it ended. Well worth the read...

You couldn't help feel for Sue Billig as she searches the country for her daughter Amy. Every clue she found made you want to read on. The characters she encounters along her search are just unreal. You wonder how people can behave the way they do in this real life story. It is well written. You feel like you are part of the search for Amy. You can not help but feel for this women and her family.

I happened to hear the authors speak at the Miami Book Fair shortly after the book came out and I'm glad I did. I've now bought half-a-dozen copies to give away to various friends. The story really has everything that you want in a human drama: people you care about, gripping characterization, a well-told and suspenseful story-line and evocative writing. As the authors stated, Mrs. Billig's quest for her daughter is a sort of modern day Odyssey -- an epic journey through the last 25 years of the 20th century. Sirens in the guise of biker women beckon for Susan to follow them, only to see her emotionally shipwrecked on rocks made of lies. And what are some of the antagonists, if not modern day versions of the Cyclops or other monsters that must be soothed, cajoled or ultimately subdued (such as the inimical Blair who stalked Mrs. Billig for over 20 years)?

At one point, Mrs. Billig searches through a sea of bikers at a rock concert only to realize, "Bikers, bikers everywhere, Not a drop of Amy." As Aunapu stated during the reading that I attended, this is an allusion to another archetypical epic, "The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner," and its famous phrase, "Water, water everywhere, And not a drop to drink." This is yet another subtle hint that Mrs. Billig's adventures are in someway fated to fulfill an ancient and tragic archetype. In this case, the heroic search, and even her love for her daughter -- as noble as they may be -- are really a weight around her neck slowly dragging her to her earth.

For me, Blair's trial is extremely important and absorbing, not only because justice is served, but because his trial is the symbological conquest of everyone who misled Mrs. Billig, who plotted against her, who tried to extort her (such as two teenagers claiming to be Amy's kidnappers) and hurt her in myriad ways. Yet the sweet Mrs. Billig attempts to befriend the wife to show her that she harbors no personal animosity. How many of us could have done the same?

I have to put myself squarely in the "couldn't put it down" camp, and think that that will be most people's reaction. Especially, anyone with children, and anyone who doubts the power of a mother's love. As unique as this story is, I think it reverberates in your subconscious because we all hope that given similar circumstances (God spare us!) that we would put the same heroic efforts into finding our loved one that Mrs. Billig did. I found out more about human nature from this book than my college psychology class! If you like true-crime, I urge you not to miss this book. If you were my friend, I'd buy it for you!

This book grabs you from the first page and never lets go. You really feel like you know the Billigs. Mrs. Billig is one tough lady. I'm just sorry the end doesn't turn out well.