Joanna Schaffhausen’s mysteries featuring detective Annalisa Vega has continued to provide solid looks into the dark crimes that consume the streets of the Chicago area. Most recently in the series, Annalisa had to make an incredibly difficult decision that involved the eventual turning over of her father to her own department for his role in a murder case. This move did not sit well with her family and caused a serious schism in her household.

"LONG GONE is a gritty read that presents Annalisa with perhaps her toughest challenge yet --- going up against the blue line of her own comrades and committing what in essence could be career suicide."

Just as she is picking up the pieces of this fallout, Annalisa is faced with an equally cold front at work. The majority of her colleagues can no longer trust her based purely on the fact that her father was a well-liked cop.

Annalisa and her partner, Nick Carelli, are working a new case involving the murder of detective Leo Hammond. When they initially get the call to go to Hammond’s house, they pray that he is not the perpetrator. How surprised they are to find everyone else in the residence alive and be told by his wife that an intruder dressed completely in scuba gear broke in and shot him in front of her in their own bedroom. It’s a bizarre story indeed, one that will require further investigation.

Annalisa finds a cell phone sitting on Hammond’s side of the bed. Upon reviewing it more closely, it appears that he may have snapped photos of the man who shot him. Imagine her shock when she sees the face of Moe Bocks, who is dating her best friend, Sassy. She immediately confronts Sassy, who goes on the defensive about Moe. However, she does admit that he was being harassed by Hammond for a while and had even filed a complaint against him. Even though it might put their friendship in jeopardy, Annalisa has no choice but to dig much deeper into who Moe really is and if he is capable of murder.

LONG GONE is a gritty read that presents Annalisa with perhaps her toughest challenge yet --- going up against the blue line of her own comrades and committing what in essence could be career suicide. All of this occurring simultaneously to her family and best friend relationships going down in flames may be too much for her to handle.