Book excerpt: Every year in the US, almost two million children run away from home. In addition, on the average, the police in our country have at any one time over 100,000 active missing-adult cases. This book will show readers how, with just a little advance preparation and insight, they can greatly increase their chances of finding a missing loved one, even after police have stopped actively looking. With sensationalized child disappearances, teenagers vanishing, and adults faking their own deaths, the challenge of finding missing persons often falls most directly on those who love them. And though in past years this involved a considerable amount of footwork, that is no longer the case. With the advent of the Internet and the many new search engines available, much of the searching and canvassing can now be done from computers. Family members and friends looking for missing loved ones need to know what programs and databases to access, though, to get the search under way. Snow, reveals to readers the process the police use when trying to locate missing people of interest, information that readers can then use to locate their own missing loved ones. Using real stories and first hand accounts, the author offers hope and guidance to those who may have given up the search for a child, a spouse, a parent, or a friend.