Daniel doesn't get out much. He works from home (responding to angry tweets from travelers on a regional airline), has a few friends who will swing by to visit him, and only really gets out for a weekly game of Azul (he always loses) and University of Georgia football games (Daniel loves tailgating). Probably doesn't help that he was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) syndrome when he was a toddler, which has progressed to the point of physically confining him to a wheelchair (which he drives with his left hand and a joystick) and limiting his communication to occasional grunts and a text-to-speech program he uses with the iPad on his chair. But when a local graduate student goes missing, it turns out that Daniel was the only person to see her disappear, and he has to figure out how to share the information.
While this was originally suggested to me as a mystery, it's much more a straight-up story of an intelligent young man (Daniel's 26) making the most of his life, one that many of us would probably have trouble even imagining. But Daniel approaches everything with such a great sense of humor, and explains SMA so clearly that it's easy to understand his limitations while not feeling pity for him. Leitch walks a fine line there (and yes, occasionally the explanations of SMA can get a little repetitive and "teachy") and does so admirably. A very enjoyable read, and I highly recommend it.
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