Beneath a Broken Sky, by Joshua Moehling (REVIEW) — After the Twister, the Danger is Just Beginning...

There are many “constants” in life—things you can rely on to happen or to be true. 

One is that whenever there’s a widespread emergency—courtesy of either man or Mother Nature—two types of people will show up.

The first are those there to help. Doesn’t matter if they’ve personally been affected or not, they want to do good.

The second type are those solely there to take advantage of a bad situation. 

Both play their parts in Joshua Moehling’s latest mystery, Beneath a Broken Sky.

 

If you’ve ever had the terrible misfortune to be in a tornado—or even just to be near one—then you know.

You know the unbelievable sight of roofs blown off, outbuildings and lawn furniture sent pinwheeling who knows where... or whole buildings blown to smithereens.

You understand the devastation of downed power lines everywhere you want to go... and of decades’—or centuries’—old trees, shattered and broken beyond what your heart can comprehend.

When the small Minnesota town of Sandy Lake faces the aftermath of a brutal summer tornado, Detective Ben Packard is unprepared, to say the least.

He’d started getting used to the slower pace, after moving from Minneapolis... though he was still trying to find his way as a gay man in a traditional midwestern community.

And now? On top of his own roof having a massive gaping hole that he’s been too busy to repair, a local woman has just been found dead inside her home.

But not from any storm damage. 

No, this mother of two—including a bullied gay son—was brutally murdered.

And Packard—already overworked by his lazy, incompetent, and homophobic nemesis of a boss—is also down his partner, Detective Thielen, still out on maternity leave.

Nor do the problems end there.

Because while his gut is telling him the deaths aren’t over, Packard must also face a ghost from his past—the sister of his dead ex—who’s suddenly shown up, looking for answers about her brother... but absolutely not the ones she finds.

And he’s forced to ask himself if the greater threats are coming from within the community, by folks whose lives have been turned upside down... or by one of the many outsiders now flooding the town, looking to help—or to take advantage of—all those poor people who don’t know right-side-up?

 

Beneath a Broken Sky is the second Ben Packard mystery I’ve read, and it’s official: I’m hooked on this character (and those around him).

As a white gay man—in an official, public-facing job, now living in a small community that still “has a problem with that”—Packard is decidedly conflicted. 

He wants to love and be loved. But with an ex who died in the line of duty, a sometimes “thing” with another ex-colleague back in Minneapolis, and a budding attraction that he’s completely befuddled by in Sandy Lake, Packard is unsure of anything.

Things aren’t any easier on the job—again, because most of the Sandy Lake cops aren’t exactly bending over backwards to welcome him into their ranks. 

There’s also the wrecked condition of his house, which he’s trying to deal with like so many others are.

And now the murder, in the middle of a blistering heat wave that makes rational thinking around all that smoke and ash nearly impossible?

Yeah. It’s A LOT.

Packard is constantly off-balance in Beneath a Broken Sky. He’s dealing with serious external issues... but the internal ones somehow feel harder to overcome.

And maybe that’s exactly how he, and maybe everyone else affected, should feel. 

There were also many other things that grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go, though.

The sights and smells in the aftermath. Those hit hard. (I’ve been as near as a couple streets away from mini-twisters touching down... and only a few miles from ones that wiped out an entire town. You don’t forget that.)

And Moehling’s description in the first couple pages, of huge old trees being horrifically broken and felled by the storm? Made me weep, hard.

Beneath a Broken Sky itself is like the aftermath of a terrible storm... with occasional moments of calm before the next, worse news comes... leaving no one able to catch their breath.

It’s hard and painful and beautiful in all the ways your heart can feel... and already, I can hardly wait to meet up with Packard on the next bit of his journey. 

~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.]