Long Time Gone

Deputy Ben Packard was a boy when his older brother vanished from their grandparents' house on a freezing winter night. The case was never solved, and it has hung over him for decades.

Now Packard is on administrative leave while a shooting is investigated. With time on his hands for the first time in years, he can finally dwell on the old disappearance, and a new lead gives him a reason to act on it.

He starts reopening the search in a Minnesota winter, with few resources and ground frozen hard. Along the way he comes across a suspicious death that seems to have no link to his brother. The two cases do not stay apart for long, and several people press him to leave the past alone.

This is a small-town police procedural with a cold, atmospheric setting. It is also a story of family, memory and grief, told in Packard's own dry, deadpan voice, which brings some warmth and humor to the tension. It is the third book in the Ben Packard series. Packard has to decide how much he will risk to learn what happened.