This one was a DNF for me. I made it through about a quarter of the book but the content was too disturbing. Thank you for the opportunity to read the book.

From a debut author, comes a dark thriller revealing true evil within. This has a lot of high reviews, but just a little too deep for me. Excellent writing and sets an excellent pace as a whole town searches for two teenagers missing.

"They thought he was a helpless old man. They were wrong."

Two teens, Jesse and Jenny, break into a house of an older man, Emmett, to steal his pain killers. Unexpectedly, they are met with the owner and his shotgun. Jesse dies and Jenny is wounded and has a worse fate than death. He chains her to his basement where she is kept in the dark. This basement represents the kind of person Emmett is. She realizes she is not the first he has kept there and he reminds her often what happened to the other victims.

What surprises her, Emmett takes care of her wounds and becomes her protector from his friend, Carl, who has darker intentions than him.

The story is more centered around the main character and the sheriff's deputy, Packard, who is carrying his own secrets and trying to escape his past while searching for the two teens. It is a race against time as the anxiety increases and tensions rise between Carl and Emmett.
Thanks NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this book title in exchange for my honest review.

I needed a good thriller to get me out of a slump, and this one did it for me! I love fast-paced criminal novels like this - it reminded me of an episode of SVU.

I live in Minnesota, and it was a plus for me when I realized this takes place in a small town in northern MN, close to where we travel to a family members cabin. Also a plus that the author is local! I think he has an excellent future as a thriller writer!

Wow I loved this book! I grew up reading the stories of male cops and male sheriffs dealing with their personal demons as they attempted to keep peace in their towns and solve crimes, they are as familiar as breakfast cereal at this point and perhaps getting just as dull.... I wasn't sure what to expect with this novel but it far surpassed my expectations and kept me enthralled for the entirety.

The novel begins when two teens break into a house to steal opiates. There is a shootout and the young girl is imprisoned. What follows next is a race against time as the local police search for the missing pair, mistakenly believing them to be runaways.

The story is told from the point of view of the acting sheriff Ben Packard and also surprisingly, the young teen's captor. Both become sympathetic characters through Joshua Moehling's stunning prose and tale. All of the town people are complex and complicated, beautifully created and important to the story.

Ben Packard back to the small Minnesota town of Sandy Lake he is the sheriff while a good friend is dealing with health problems. From the start it's clear that this is a small town and there are lot of interesting characters that Ben gets to interact with.

I loved so many people in this book but the hero especially. Ben is nuanced and haunted by tragedy and his own secrets. They keep him from making deep ties and socializing with the citizens of the town. He too grows. This is a remarkable debut—sharp, suspenseful, and emotionally powerful If you love a thriller, police and sheriff stories or just enjoy a great tale, this book is for you! I can't believe it's the author's first novel and I look very much forward to hearing more from him and hopefully about Ben Packard. #NetGalley #AndThereHeKeptHer

This story was crafted to keep the reader on their toes the whole way through. We follow a small town cop to solve the mystery of two missing teenagers, except with each clue revealed, we just have more questions. One of my favorite aspects of this book was seeing the mind of the villain (or one of them) from this story. It takes a skilled writer to make you feel sympathy for them, and that's exactly what happened. I would recommend this book to any fan of thrillers.

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle by Poisoned Pen Press and #NetGalley for my honest opinion. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

An exciting thriller for fans of the genre.

Underlying, Dark Menace…
Emmett Burr has secrets. Secrets that he’s been keeping in his basement for over twenty years. He will do anything to make sure that it stays that way and the equilibrium maintained. When two teenagers break in so begins a tale of nightmarish proportions. Unsettling, dark suspense with a constant underlying menace providing the reader with an edge of seat, tense reading experience and a plot populated with a well crafted cast. An ideal read, perhaps, for these darker nights.

This is a well written debut novel.. I found it sharp, suspenseful, and emotionally powerful.
Two teens break into Emmett Burr’s house in search of opiates. The house is in a remote area of Sandy Lake, Minnesota. Emmett shoots and kills the boy, while the girl, Jenny, is chained and left in a cell in the basement.
Ben Packard, who recently moved from Minneapolis, is the acting Sherriff and related to one of the teens(Jenny).
Ben will uncover many truths about the dark side of Sandy Lake.

Ok, this was exciting!

This thriller seriously had me on edge.

I loved (loved, loved, loved) our main character and was equally involved with one of our victims. I was so worried!

What’s really going on is completely horrifying and some of it shocked me.

An excellent fast paced read that kept me riveted!

*ARC via publisher.

#AndThereHeKeptHer #NetGalley
Good book.
Emmett Burr has secrets he's been keeping in his basement for more than two decades, and he'll do anything to keep his past from being revealed. As he gets the upper hand on his tormentors, the lines blur between victim, abuser, and protector. Personal tragedy has sent former police officer Ben Packard back to the small Minnesota town of Sandy Lake in search of a fresh start. Now a sheriff's deputy, Packard is leading the investigation into the missing teens, motivated by a family connection. As clues dry up and time runs out to save them, Packard is forced to reveal his own secrets and dig deep to uncover the dark past of the place he now calls home.
Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for giving me an advanced copy.

Two teenagers get more than they bargain for when they break into a house in search of drugs. The homeowner, Emmet Bur, shoots and kills the boy, and chains the girl up in his basement. And she’s not the first woman he’s kept down there. Her mother reaches out to deputy Ben Packard for help finding her missing daughter. Packard is the perfect tortured hero, returning to his hometown after a tragedy while on duty as a big city cop. This is an intense, creepy story; it blurs some lines that may leave some readers a little uncomfortable, but I loved it

Great book! What a storyline! This book had a little bit of everything! It had suspense, action, intrigue and a few really messed up bad guys! It had me glued to my kindle the entire time! Great read! I highly recommend reading this one! Its well worth reading! Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for sharing this book with me!