The Secrets That Refuse to Stay Hidden... (A Long Time Gone police mystery novel review)

Snow can hide a multitude of secrets.

The ugliness of barren ground. Footprints, made by any number of creatures. Patches of ice. Entire frozen lakes, even.

 

Small towns are no slouches at hiding secrets, either.

 

Keeping things from outsiders, sure... but also, sometimes, from others within the community... when someone else decides they don’t need to know.

 

Joshua Moehling’s latest entry in his Ben Packard series, A Long Time Gone, sees the small-town cop dealing with way too many secrets in the midst of another frigid Minnesota winter.

 

 

Recently an acting sheriff—but since demoted to deputy status, and assigned to the inglorious job of metal-detector duty at the courthouse—Deputy Ben Packard has had better days (months, years), than today. 

 

The day he’s confronted with a desperate man who’s somehow managed to sneak a gun into the courthouse... and aims to use it, in the name of “justice”.

 

Ben does what he has to do—preserving as many lives as he can—yet still winds up in the doghouse, again, on leave pending the findings from the investigation into his heroic actions.  

 

And it’s within that murky state of disillusionment (with the system), that a new issue arises.

 

Or... make that, a very old issue, once again rearing its head.

 

Ben learns of new info regarding the decades-old disappearance of his older brother... still unsolved.

 

It’s a wound that his family has never “gotten over”... one which splintered his parents’ marriage, and left him and his remaining siblings in a state of confusion and loss.

 

An old detective, now dead, left behind a clue that could point to a buried body. 

 

But there’s only so much that a downgraded deputy—on indefinite leave, no less—can do, only so many favors he can call in.

 

Capricious fate is hardly done tormenting Ben, though.

 

An elderly woman—someone who’d purchased Ben’s grandparents’ home after their passings (but was really only known to Ben’s mom)— had met her end by falling down a set of steep basement stairs.

 

Ben only learns of it when his mom is visiting, and wants to visit the home she’d grown up in. 

 

And what they find, the remnants of the scene of the tragedy? Don’t add up at all, not to Ben. 

 

The problem is, that case is closed—“accidental death”—and everyone Ben talks to seems determined to keep it that way.

 

With the department’s files and databases off-limits, during his absence—and the new sheriff (who beat Ben in the election) dead-set against him—Ben’s options are limited.

 

But what no one seems to appreciate about Ben is how resourceful and determined he is...

 

 

A Long Time Gone is the first time I’ve read Moehling—but it certainly won’t be the last.

 

It’s actually the third in a series, though, so I (briefly) wondered if I’d feel as though I’d been dropped into the middle of something, but that wasn’t the case, at all. A Long Time Gone can easily be read on its own.

 

And reading it, I highly recommend, because this is a really good book.

 

Ben is a fully-realized character... middle-aged, not too young or too old. (And by that, I mean he’s already lived plenty... but also realizes he still has a long way to go.)

 

He’s also gay... which is dealt with realistically. Does he face ostracism and bigotry in the small town he’s relocated to? Absolutely, every day. Did he also have issues with publicly acknowledging his orientation when he was previously a detective in Minneapolis? Yep, that, too. 

 

It’s a sensitive portrayal of how middle-America views and reacts to “other” lifestyles and preferences... from the viewpoint of someone just trying to live his life.

 

It’s also a real look at family—particularly, one that’s been splintered by tragedy—and how people try to make sense of their new realities, and of trying to still be a part of the world.

 

Drama. Sadness. Selfishness. Brutality. Grief. Frustration.

 

And, in those pockets in between, moments of joy and freedom and redemption.

 

In short, there’s nothing I don’t recommend, wholeheartedly, about A Long Time Gone. This one is so worth your time.

~GlamKitty

 

[My sincere thanks to Poisoned Pen Press for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are, as always, entirely my own.]