I'm probably the type of reader that drives some authors wild. I'll find a mystery series that I really like and instead of keeping current with it, I'll save it for when I need a 100% guaranteed good read. Vicki Delany's Constable Molly Smith series is one on that special list. The writing is so good that it doesn't matter how long I go between books, I always know exactly where I am in the lives of the characters. Well, I needed a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool good read, so I picked up Among the Departed, the fifth book in the Constable Molly Smith series. I wasn't disappointed. (Hey, that's why this series is on my list!)

From the crackerjack opening involving a lost child, the pace never falters. Once you start learning about the characters involved in the investigation, it's not difficult to piece together whodunit. The real question is how was it done, and Delany certainly knows how to keep us guessing while she advances the lives of her main characters.

Molly and her mother are still grieving over the loss of someone dear to them, but the two women are going through the process in different ways-- which definitely suits police officer Molly and her tie-dye Hippie mother, Lucky. Another interesting character is John Winters' wife who is an aging fashion model. Not only is the marriage a weird pairing-- police officer and high fashion model-- the beautiful Mrs. Winters is turning into a much more delineated character than I'd originally expected. Readers are treated to the daily lives of police officers and, in addition, how a model's life changes once she begins to age. Plus, what's happened to each member of the Nowak family is quite sobering.

Yes indeed. Delany has created a series with a perfect setting, strong stories, and memorable characters. As I was reading Among the Departed, I kept getting the nagging feeling that this series reminded me of another author's. Finally, it came to me: Elly Griffiths and her Dr. Ruth Galloway mysteries. Does that make some of you sit up and take notice? Good! I'd hate for you to miss out on some fine reading. ( )

Molly Smith and her boyfriend Adam Tocek are both constables in the town of Trafalgar, British Columbia. Adam is also the handler of Norman, a highly trained police dog. Late one evening, Adam gets a call that there's a small boy missing from a camping area nearby, and all three of them respond. The boy is quickly found, unharmed, but Norman also finds some bones. Adult human bones.

These bones are quickly determined to be the bones of Brian Nowak, a man who disappeared fifteen years ago. In an uncomfortable coincidence, Molly Smith, then known by the name her mother gave her, Moonlight, was a good friend of Brian's daughter Nicole. She had spent the previous night with her friend, and was the last person outside the family to see Brian before his disappearance while Nicole, her mother, and her brother Kyle were at church.

The reopening of the investigation brings Nicole Nowak back from Vancouver, and forces Kyle, now an artist whose works become more disturbing the longer you look at them, to occasionally emerge from his basement apartment in his mother's house. The constable who investigated at the time of the disappearance, Paul Keller, is now the Chief Constable in Trafalgar, and can't resist getting involved in this reopened investigation. This brings him back into contact with Molly/Moonlight's recently widowed mother, Lucky Smith--whose hippie background and leftist politics aren't a comfortable match for becoming interested in a police officer. (Or for having a police officer as a daughter, but what's a mother to do?) Meanwhile, Molly is learning things about her old friend's life since she left town at sixteen, and her current career (not interior decorating, as she claims), and part of Nicole's new life follows her to Trafalgar, creating a danger for some of the young girls in town.

As old questions get asked again, and previously overlooked stones are turned over, the entanglement of personal and professional, and past and present, creates tensions all over town, and leads to an unexpected answer to the mystery of why Brian Nowak disappeared, and how he wound up dead in the woods outside town.

This is a neat, intricate mystery with wonderfully developed, complex characters. Highly recommended.

I received a free electronic galley from the publisher via NetGalley. ( )

This is the fifth book in the Constable Molly Smith series set in Trafalgar, British Columbia. When bones belonging to Brian Nowak are discovered fifteen years after his disappearance a new investigation is opened. His daughter was Molly's best friend and Molly was one of the last people to see him alive before he disappeared. Molly and her boss, Sergeant John Winters begin to question former witnesses to see if they remember anything. Years later his family thought he left him for another woman. Just before disappearing he withdrew $10,000 from a retirement account. His artist son believed he was a womanizer, his wife has become a recluse, and his daughter went on to be a hooker/scam artist.

There are numerous characters that provide lots of local charm, particularly Molly's mother, Lucky, a former hippie. I really like this series, more on the cozy side than gritty. It's set in a atmospheric place and the characters are first rate. This is an enjoyable series that doesn't need to be read in order. ( )

Bones located while searching for lost boy reopen a cold case. Excellent portrait of a family destroyed by apparent defection of their husband and father. Small town life and romance enliven the detection without becoming burdensome.

For me Among the departed was the first book about constable Molly Smith that I read. But it's the fifth book of a series about her. Occasionally it was noticeable in references to the past, but to the main story it didn't matter that I hadn't read the previous books.

The story begins immediately scary, with a little lost boy. However, he is found. But where they find him, there also lies set of bones. Those bones soon turn out to be human...
Is this then Brian Nowak, who is lost for so many years? An unsolved disappearance case. His wife and son still living their solitaire and weird lives in the village of Trafalgar. Daughter Nicky flew to Vancouver, but is her life better there?

The mystery is solved bit by bit. And it remains a typical cozy mystery, with the necessary love affairs between some of the main characters. The story reads easily, although I was annoyed that the people are sometimes called by their first name and a bit later by their family name. Rather confusing. I often wondered who we were talking about.

All in all a nice book for rainy evenings (of which we have many, come on sun, it's July!). When I again encounter a book in this series I will probably read it.

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