I literally just finished reading Lisa Cohen’s debut book After Etan and had to write the review NOW; because, in my opinion, the best written reviews are those expressed while feeling the height of emotion.

And I am overcome with emotion.

Stan and Julie Patz couldn’t know that, as their six-and-half-year-old son Etan left for school on May 25, 1979 from their SoHo loft apartment, it would be the last time they would ever see him.

On that day, the name Etan Patz would become synonymous with the term “Missing Children.”

In the years that followed, the Patzes would be the object of much ridicule and suspicion, especially Julie; but they would also see and feel the humanity in others.

It was through their terrible journey – one no parent ever wishes to embark upon – that Stan Patz would develop a long lasting friendship with Stuart GraBois: an Assistant United States Attorney who vowed to seek justice for little Etan Patz.

AUSA GraBois had a job to do and it did well. At first offending then befriending Stan Patz as his search for a killer took him along a path filled with unique people and places; eventually introducing him to a malicious pied-piper of sorts, Jose Antonio Ramos.

Ramos, a self-declared but obviously faux Jew, had a penchant for young, blonde boys. Although, if one can sort through his random ramblings and threats against anyone who gave the slightest indication of being against him, he never engaged in anything that wasn’t consenual.

But NOBODY was buying it; especially not AUSA GraBois.

What followed was a two decade struggle to bring criminal charges against the man who had means, motive, and opportunity to harm the young Patz.

The information obtained by AUSA GraBois and FBI Agents from Ramos will sicken, disgust, and outright anger anyone of sound mind – especially parents.

Yet, on the softer side of After Etan, readers are given a lesson in how during the worst of tragedies, good things can come forth.

For example, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was born out of the cases of Etan Patz and Adam Walsh; an organization, nonexistent in 1979, that maintains a complete database of missing children from across the country.

I admire Stan and Julie Patz, such a strong, devout, compassionate couple.

But I’m left wondering how different they might be today if the events of 1979 had never occurred.

Lisa Cohen has written a gripping account of this well-known case during the 30th anniversary of Etan’s disappearance.

I highly recommend After Etan; not only to true crime fans but to anyone who is a parent – it an interesting read, a lesson to be learned, and a reminder that you can never know what the future holds.

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