Ben Packard was 12 when he saw his brother Nick sneak out the door of their grandparents’ lake house in the middle of a frigid Minnesota winter night. Nick never returned and Ben was the last person to see him.
In the third installment of Joshua Moehling’s Ben Packard series, “A Long Time Gone,” we finally get answers to the mystery that’s been plaguing him for three decades.
Packard, fresh off losing the race for sheriff and demoted from detective to court security, is at a career low when he gets put on administrative leave for use of force. Unable to face the emotional baggage he’s been building up over the years, he pours himself into the cold case of his missing brother. When that leads him to a separate suspected murder, he’s more than willing to pull threads and follow leads if it means he can keep burying his trauma. But trauma has a way of catching up with you.
Moehling balances a triple-pronged story, hopping between the Nick cold case; the investigation into Packard that raises personal and societal concerns in the wake of George Floyd being murdered in Minneapolis; and the suspected killing of Louise Larsen, the woman who lived in the lake house where he spent childhood breaks from school and where Nick disappeared from.
All these things seem to be connected, and there is definitely money and greed at play, but we only know what Packard knows and there is a whole laundry list of people who are potentially involved.
Plus, as in any good mystery, Moehling includes little side dramas: simmering tensions from when Packard ran for sheriff, a coworker whose questionable health is a quiet but constant stream of worry, a lawyer involved in the Larsen estate who Packard thought of as an ally but might be withholding information.
Packard is a fun character to root for. His sincerity, dedication and honesty make him empathetic, even when he’s hazing the new guy or intentionally poking the bear. It’s hard not to love this trauma-riddled detective with his three-legged rescue Corgi and delicious home-cooked meals. And, in this book, we get to meet Packard’s mom, his perfect foil who brings a lot of comedic relief in her insistence that her son should chat up a handsome local and get himself laid.
While the main focus is Packard and the mystery at hand, other contemporary issues are surfaced. Foremost is lingering stigma aimed at LGBTQ+ people like Packard, but Moehling also shines a light on COVID-relief fraud, police brutality, long-term issues springing from combat and PTSD, work-life balance, gun ownership, and even the Paris trash strikes.
All the while, wry humor and Midwestern witticisms pepper the novel with levity.
Moehling’s third novel cements the Ben Packard series as a must-read for anyone interested in crime, thrillers, or small-town novels. This big-hearted, fast-paced finale has enough context built in that it could stand alone, but the excellent writing, thrilling cases and bursts of action make it worth starting at the beginning. “A Long Time Gone” brings it all home for an emotional, deeply satisfying conclusion.
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