Review: A Long Time Gone by Joshua Moehling

Title: A Long Time Gone

Series: Ben Packard: Book Three

Author: Joshua Moehling

Length: 325 Pages

Category: Murder Mystery

Rating: 5 Stars

At a Glance: There is a comfort in Joshua Moehling’s voice that leads readers along with a deep-seated need to not only see what happens next but to watch Packard close a case and deliver justice. I will read every single thing this author writes, mystery or otherwise.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: It’s time to put the past to rest…

Ben Packard was just a boy when his older brother disappeared. Ben watched him walk out the back door of their grandparents’ house and into the cold night.

His brother was never seen again.

Decades later, Deputy Packard finds himself with too much time on his hands. A shooting has him on leave and under investigation, and all he can do is dwell on the past. For the first time in years, new information about his brother has surfaced that may lead them to the location of a body.

The midwinter ground is frozen solid. Worse, Packard is cut off from department resources. As he strikes out to finally uncover the truth behind his brother’s disappearance, he stumbles on a separate, suspicious death. A tenuous connection exists between the two cases, and as Packard starts to dig, he meets fierce resistance from friends and foes alike who want him to stand down.

The winter is long and cold. By the end of it, Packard will risk everything to catch a killer and reveal the shocking truth about his brother.

Review: There are a slew of adjectives I could use to describe Deputy Ben Packard. Among them would be tenacious, perceptive, and sincere. Those are just a few of the things that make Packard a brilliant investigator. What makes him a lovely human being are his compassion, integrity, and humility.

The mystery in A Long Time Gone delves deep into corruption, malice, greed, and depravity, which offers up a sad commentary on humanity with plenty of suspects. Louise Larsen’s death was ruled an accident at the time. But Ben (being Ben: curious, intuitive, observant) gives full rein to his suspicions that the “investigation” into the elderly woman’s death was mishandled. Not that he would accuse the newly-elected Sheriff Howard Shepard of botching the case—even if it’s the truth. Shepard is lazy, smug, and didn’t win the election because of his proficiency at the job. Packard is nothing if not diplomatic, though, and has a way of getting what he wants, which is to reopen Louise’s case based on new evidence.

“Once upon a time he had an older brother who had lived.”

An omnipresent mystery over the course of the first three books in this series is the death of Ben’s older brother, Nick, thirty years ago. The Packard family has never gotten answers or closure to all the questions that linger over Nick’s disappearance. Until now. Ben’s investigation into newly-uncovered clues seems nothing but obstacles and Catch-22s, not that that has ever stopped him. Ben being a brother and son (his mother is a little quirky and simply the best) offers a warmth and relatability to his character. It brings him down to earth when he seems too good to be true.

The Ben Packard series isn’t flashy or pretentious, much like Packard himself. Joshua Moelhing writes a brilliant mystery, covering the procedural with a focus towards seeing with intuition as much as with an eye to detail. Packard is the consummate investigator who doesn’t do what he does for the attention. He does it because he’s sworn to serve the people, and he takes that duty seriously. There is a comfort in Joshua Moehling’s voice that leads readers along with a deep-seated need to not only see what happens next but to watch Packard close a case and deliver justice. I will read every single thing this author writes, mystery or otherwise.