Cold city like the eyes in the subway station: LONG GONE.

Long Gone by Joanna Schaffhausen
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Detective Annalisa Vega's life is in tatters after making a decision that tore her family apart. Without their support and with most of her fellow officers turned against her, Anna is basically on her own. So when a fellow cop, Leo Hammond, turns up murdered, Anna figures she has little to lose in investigating his murder. She quickly learns Leo had a recent altercation with wealthy Moe Bocks, whom he had long suspected in the murder of a young woman in a cold case. When Anna learns Moe is dating her (kinda, former) sister-in-law, she hones in on him in the way only Anna can, putting both her life and career in jeopardy.

Well, this was just as dark, excellent, and thought-provoking as all of Schaffhausen's books. I love her writing so much, and I'm now really loving the Annalisa Vega series (this is book #2), even if she frustrates me sometimes with her impulsive behavior. She also makes a lot of decisions that stress me out and, because I'm attached to her, make me worry about her! That's good writing, as I care about the character.

I highly recommend reading the first book in the series, because it's good, though this book does stand-alone. I won't go into much detail about what Anna did in book one, other than to say that her personal life with her once close-knit Chicago family is pretty much in shambles. She's partnered with her ex-husband Nick, a man who cheated on her while they were wed, but has her back now. When they find Leo Hammond dead, his new and much younger wife claims she saw a "frogman" in a wet-suit before he was killed. Is Kayla telling the truth or did she kill her husband for the insurance money? Why would anyone be running around the cold streets of Chicago in a diving suit?

"She'd blown up her whole life last year and Nick was the only one left standing in the ashes."

What follows is an excellent mystery coupled with a strong character-driven story. Anna becomes intensely fixated on the cold case related to Moe Bocks, who is suspected of strangling a young woman many years ago. All of this ties together with Leo and three fellow cops, Tom, Paulie, and Frankie. As Anna delves into Leo's death, she realizes these four cops may not be on the up-and-up, which certainly isn't going to get her any more love from the police department.

Schaffhausen offers us complicated and realistic characters, as always, starting with Anna, then Nick, and even our quartet of cops. She embraces the Chicago setting (there's a line about the Bulls and Michael Jordan going to the Wizards that is so Windy city and on point...) and brings it to life perfectly (this from someone with both parents from these Chicago suburbs).

If you love a strong and dark mystery populated with excellent characters, you'll love LONG GONE. 4.5 stars.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and Minotaur Books in return for an unbiased review.

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