Review: As It Never Was

As It Never Was by Bo Thunboe
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This engrossing and painful mystery is guaranteed to tear out a reader's heart, unless your heart is made of ice, or metal, or nonexistent. Definitely 18+ for subject matter. However, the author keeps the "details" off stage, but reading between the lines is enough. Detective Jake Houser of Weston, Illinois, is back on stage with this trademark dedication to justice and to perseverance in search of the truth. He is tasked by a couple, Paul and Linda Siebert, to look into the disappearance seven years earlier of their son, Mark. This is to be an off-side investigation, one involving Jake's own intellect and resources, not the Weston Police Department. A young man has visited the Sieberts to tell Linda that Mark is still alive. Jake assumes it's a con, but one played out as a long-shot, after seven years. That would have been grief enough, but the truth is so much worse, and so much wider-ranging. What Jake uncovers is shocking, disturbing, and unfortunately, a reflection of contemporary crime and immorality.

Author Bo Thunboe is again at the top of his form with this third in his Jake Houser mystery series, a series not to be missed if a reader wishes to be totally engrossed, mentally, psychologically, and emotionally.

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