I loved this one, oh my goodness! I don't read any detective series but I would follow this one. The ending?! I want to know more about Packer, I want the rest of this town and their antics and secrets and dirt! This was so good, oh my goodness

I really enjoyed this audiobook! It hooked me from the first chapter and kept me hooked the whole time!

I love thrillers that tell you who the bad guy is upfront. Usually when they do this, we get to see inside the mind of a killer. Sometimes we even start to like them…
I found it very hard to dislike Emmett, not because of his sunshine personality, but because it seems he had a hard life. Yes he has a room in his basement used for horrific purposes, but he had good intentions. Lol He just has poor taste in friends. They are the real problem.
The detective in this story is my new favorite protagonist. I want to see Ben Packard in another book. He is determined, smart, witty and like-able. The fact that he is a gay man on the police force in a small town, makes his character much more interesting. I’d like to see where Moehling goes with that next. The mystery behind his brother’s disappearance is another hook for his story. Needless to say, I’m ready for more!
The audiobook is narrated by a woman, which I didn’t think would work for a mainly male narrative. I was very surprised as how much I actually liked her voice, and felt she nailed the male voices. She really grabbed me with her ability to go from harsh and scary to soft and emotional.
This is one of the best thrillers I have read in 2022. It is very well written, with excellent characters, and extremely suspenseful. Even though I knew where it was going, the ride was fantastic.

And There He Kept Her is a debut psychological thriller by Joshua Moehling, based in the small town of Sandy Lake, Minnesota. The book begins with Jenny and Jesse being caught in a home robbery and then going missing from there. Bring in the small town police officer (Ben Packard), the missing teens families, a serial murderer and small town drug corruption and the story takes off from there.

The first part of this book spent a lot of time setting up the characters and background story and I found there were a lot of characters and had a hard time keeping them separated. Once the characters and their histories were set, the book started to flow well and was fairly easy to follow.

This book had some underlying themes of violence, abuse, homophobia, substance abuse and sexual assault; however, the story only briefly touched on these themes.

The narrator was excellent and maintain a clear intonation and pace throughout.
This book had a similar feel to it as We Begin At The End by Chris Whitaker.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC version of this new release in exchange for my honest review and opinion.

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