Across the Vanishing Sky

Over the past decade, true crime has evolved from a niche genre into one of the most dominant forms of media, including podcasts, streaming documentaries, YouTube channels, and vast online communities on platforms like Reddit and TikTok. Most notably, landmark projects such as the Serial podcast (2014) and Netflix’s Making a Murderer (2015) demonstrated that independent journalists and filmmakers could reopen public interest in cold cases, sometimes influencing official investigations and even changing legal outcomes. This trend has given rise to a new model of citizen-led investigation, where amateur sleuths, podcasters, and social media users crowdsource tips, analyze evidence, and pressure law enforcement to act on cases that have stalled or been ignored.

However, the impact of this shift is double-edged. On one hand, grassroots media has successfully generated new leads in cases that traditional law enforcement had abandoned, giving the families of missing persons a viable platform when official channels fail them. On the other hand, true crime’s popularity also raises ethical concerns about the exploitation of victims, the spread of misinformation, and the harassment of innocent people whom misled online communities wrongly identify as the culprits. The Gabby Petito case in 2021 became a defining example of this new landscape, with TikTok users and independent creators generating tips that reportedly aided the FBI investigation—even as their efforts simultaneously blurred the line between investigation and entertainment.

This cultural moment provides important context for Across the Vanishing Sky. When Nova disappears, Sheriff Miller dismisses the case as an accident, telling Braedyn that her case is “cold” and that he is reassigning officers to cases that “might actually do some good” (15). Faced with official indifference, Braedyn turns to the tools of the modern citizen investigator. She creates her own social media account to keep Nova’s story visible, trains a search dog, and eventually partners with independent true-crime podcaster Ridley Sawyer to amplify the case. With these details, the novel engages directly with the possibilities and pitfalls of this new media ecosystem, exploring how ordinary people can new tools and independent networks to demand accountability when institutional systems fall short. Yet even in the midst of this positive portrayal, the author also acknowledges the emotional toll involved into turning a loved one’s disappearance into fodder for public content.