by JULIET WATERS

In August of 2002, Maggie de Vries was informed by the Vancouver police that her sister Sarah's DNA had been discovered on Robert Pickton's farm. A veteran street prostitute by the age of 28, Sarah de Vries had been missing since April of 1998. The mystery of her whereabouts has been solved, but one mystery that is never solved in Missing Sarah: A Vancouver Woman Remembers Her Vanished Sister is why a middle-class girl with all the advantages of economic stability, education and an imperfect but obviously loving family would turn to prostitution at age 14.

Maggie de Vries' memoir of Sarah's childhood, her disintegration and increasing marginalization is difficult to get into at first. No matter how many happy memories de Vries has of her adopted younger sister, how confident, generous and alive Sarah once was, there's a distance in the writing. De Vries tells the story of her parents' divorce and the racism Sarah faced, as one of the few mixed-race children in their neighbourhood, with an honesty that is efficient but limited. The transition in Sarah's personality from outgoing, average, eager-to-please child to hardcore juvenile delinquent is quick and dramatic. De Vries' genuine concern is obvious, and we learn that the family tried every kind of compassionate and tough-love solution.

What we don't learn is whether or not they ever sought the kind of help that might have given more clues about what was happening. The impression one gets is of a loving family that was more focused on solutions than insight.

However, just as the transition in Sarah's life was sudden, so is the transition in this book from hard to read to hard to put down. Fortunately de Vries does not waste time trying to understand something that can no longer be understood. With her energy focused instead on gaining insight into Sarah's life after she left home, this book becomes a fascinating account of how the Vancouver legal system forced prostitution into more and more dangerous territory throughout the '80s and '90s. With the gentrification of the inner city, sex workers were increasingly zoned into anonymous, industrial areas. With fewer and fewer witnesses and weaker support networks, it's no mystery why the murder of prostitutes became increasingly common.

So many books focus on trying to understand the mysterious motivations of serial killers who prey on hookers. Too few examine the transparent social conditions that conspire to make them the easiest targets for murder. Fewer still tell the story of what had to be done for a city to consider this a crime worthy of serious investigation.

The timing of this book is interesting, coming as it does so soon after Canada has taken major steps towards creating policy that entitles historically marginalized groups to rights and support. Gays who were once considered deviants can now benefit from the security of legally sanctioned marriages. Addicts who were once considered criminals can now shoot up in safe havens in the same Vancouver neighbourhood where Sarah De Vries worked. Sex workers, who have always been considered human refuse unworthy of rights, safe working conditions and options, don't seem to be making the same progress.

The strength of this book is not that it makes strong arguments in favour of adopting harm reduction policies for sex workers. De Vries draws from arguments that have been made many times. The strength of Missing Sarah is that ultimately it makes us care about someone whom we've been socialized not to care about. It's easy to tell ourselves that Sarah threw her life away, but the truth is she had a lot of help. Missing Sarah tells a compassionate but chilling story of how her life had been disposed of long before her murderer did the formalities.

Missing Sarah: A Vancouver Woman Remembers Her Vanished Sister by Maggie de Vries, Penguin, HC, 272 pp, $36