Ellen Singer (a pseudonym) met her husband, Roger, when she was 17. She fled him when she was 34 and finally disappeared for good with her daughters at 40, saying an unspoken goodbye to "family, friends, steady employment, credit cards and video rentals." After six years of pleading and demanding that the governments of two countries (Canada and the U.S.), three states, and one province "protect my family from a cyber-savvy stalker with the money to hire a reputed hit man, I was left with one simple choice: kill Roger or disappear." Since June of 1997, Singer and her daughters have remained successfully hidden, in poverty and under assumed names, somewhere in North America. A tangled but peaceful web of white lies and evasive strategies keeps their whereabouts off the official record—and hopefully out of sight of the man who abused and stalked them. Quicksand is the account of how they got to this point. Singer's story demonstrates how spousal abuse—both psychological and physical—is not merely the province of the poor and uneducated, and how it can cripple the confidence and the will of any woman, regardless of class, race, or educational achievement. This vivid and personal testimony explains why women stay in abusive relationships, and how law enforcement and the legal system often betray victims and their children. Singer, a former journalist, freely admits that rage fuels her story. "I will project my voice with passionate fury in honor of the abused women who were killed before their stories could be told," she writes from forced anonymity, "and in the hope that other women might hear me and live." \—Svenja Soldovieri