REVIEW: "And There He Kept Her" by Joshua Moehling
It's been over a year since I moved into my current house.
In that time, we have repainted every wall. We have replaced every scrap of carpeting. We have finished the unfinished portions of the basement. And I have become pregnant with — and since given birth to — my daughter.
What I have not had occasion to do in these 14(ish) months is meet my next door neighbor. I have not ventured over to borrow a cup of sugar. I have not passed him on the street — at least that I know of. And I have not introduced myself and my family, just as he has not introduced himself and his.
Everything I do know about this individual, I have gleaned from ornamentation on the exterior of his residence. I know that he must have a nearly-grown child as, a little more than a month ago a "Class of 2022" sign sprung up in his yard. And I know that he is likely a staunch conservative as a fixture in his garden since we moved in has been a "Blue Lives Matter" flag.
When I pause to ponder whether it is odd that I haven't met this individual, I am unable to reach an easy conclusion. In decades past, yes, absolutely, not meeting your neighbor would have been weird to say the least. But now, in 2022 — when most of the people I know forge friendships online with people with whom they actually have a shared interest instead of forcing themselves into relationships as a result of accidental geographic proximity — I don't know that it's that uncommon not to know the people who you live amongst.
While this intentional disconnection usually isn't a problem, it does make it much easier for people to keep secrets. And though these secrets often aren't dangerous, they can be. They can be deadly, like the secrets that Emmett Burr has been keeping for decades.
By all outward appearances, Emmett Burr is just a fat, marginally mobile, pain-medication-dependent old man. Given his visible limitations, he seems like an easy target for would-be drug thieves. But when inexperienced Jesse and his girlfriend Jenny break in to Emmett’s home they get much more than they bargained for.
The morning after this ill-fated break-in, new(ish) Sandy Lake, Minnesota, resident — and temporary sheriff — Ben Packard receives a call from his cousin. She is worried — though not overly so — about the fact that her daughter, Jenny, seems to have snuck out in the night and not returned. Though Jenny hasn’t even been gone long enough to truly be considered missing — by the potentially imaginary “48 hours” standard depicted on crime TV shows — Packard acquiesces to his cousin’s request and begins to look for her daughter.
Clues seem few and far between, but two things rapidly become clear to Packard.
The first is that this disappearance is more complex than he initially suspected.
And the second is that, if he doesn’t figure out what happened to Jenny soon, this case is unlikely to end in a happy resolution.
And There He Kept Her by debut author Joshua Moehling is, in a word, propulsive.
While the plot of this novel was absolutely compelling, the true stand-out feature is the protagonist, world-worn and beyond-lovable Ben Packard.
As is common with most central detectives, Packard has baggage. What is not so common, however, is that some of Packard’s baggage is the result of his sexuality.
In a largely ineffective attempt to stay where he expects people want him to remain — in the closet — Packard closes himself off to most real relationships. This gives him a one-man-against-the-world vibe that makes him naturally endearing. But what he lacks in personal confidence, he makes up for in competency. He is not a bumbling Barney Fife but instead a skilled Olivia Benson-esque detective who feels honor-bound to put right all that is wrong in the world.
As a perfect foil to our almost preternaturally good protagonist, Moehling built a believably though alarmingly evil antagonist in Burr.
Like Packard, Burr has a complex past. But decidedly unlike Packard’s, Burr’s history is filled with a series of escalating misdeeds that have ultimately gotten him to where he is today.
By transitioning fluidly back and forth between the perspectives of his protagonist and his antagonist, Moehling intensifies readers’ feelings of urgency and adds a multi-dimensionality to his work that truly sets it apart.
As I plowed through this book — barely making it 24 hours from when I cracked the spine to when I closed the back cover — I felt authentically tense and unreasonably worried about whether it would all work out for these imaginary people in this imaginary town.
If I invested a fraction of the attention that I applied to this book and these characters to actually meeting the real-life human who lives next door to me, I would have significantly fewer questions as to who he was and what makes him tick. As it is, though, I don’t know if he is a kind, gentlehearted man or if, instead, he is the type of individual who would viciously dispense with a set of wayward teens who stupidly underestimated his abilities and brutality.
There is not a single negative thing I can say about this stunning debut. It earns an enthusiastic 5 out of 5 cocktails.
Having just met Ben Packard — sort of — I’m suddenly in the mood to acquaint myself with some other strong and compelling protagonists. Who is your favorite thriller protagonist? Tell me about him or her in the comments, below.
Okay. It’s been a fun run of thrillers, but now I’m feeling like I need to take a break and crack open a romance-rich beach read. Want to see what I select next? Follow me on Goodreads and subscribe to updates in the sidebar on the right.
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*I was provided a gifted copy of this title by the publisher*
