Ben Rehder Gives Strange Name to A difficult to Follow Mystery - Gone The Next: Roy Ballard Mysteries Book 1 -- I Was Hooked...Until

 

It’s difficult to understand why one missing-person case catches the nation’s heart and soul while thousands more hardly get thirty seconds on the local news. You know the type of high-profile case I’m talking about. The one that gets near-constant play on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and every other national media outlet hungry for ratings. Polly Klaas. Elizabeth Smart. Natalee Holloway. Laci Peterson. Caylee Anthony. 

Nancy Grace will yack about one particular case for an hour without telling the viewer anything new. Looping the same video over and over. There’s something salacious about it. It seems to be more about entertainment — and ratings — than about offering information that may somehow help solve the case. Something else bothers me, too. The cases that receive mega-airtime almost exclusively involve a white victim. An upper middle-class white victim. An attractive, upper middle-class white victim. I’m not sure if that says something about the value we place on various members of society, but I hope not.

Regardless, for whatever reason, Tracy Turner quickly became one of those high-profile cases. When I got home and turned on the TV, there she was on the screen, hair in pigtails, and I could feel a hole open up in my chest. The news anchor was talking to an expert who was delivering statistics that I knew, unfortunately, by heart. 

Roughly 800,000 children are reported missing in the United States every year. Two thousand every day. Many of them are runaways, some are abducted (usually by a family member), and some are lost or injured. Child abductions leading to murder are relatively rare. One hundred cases a year. Most are “average” kids leading “normal” lives with “typical” families. Three quarters of the victims are female. Eighty percent of the time, the initial contact between victim and killer takes place within a quarter-mile of the child’s home. The average abductor-killer is twenty-seven years old, unmarried, and has at least one prior arrest for a violent crime. He lives alone or with his parents. He’s unemployed or working in an unskilled or semi-skilled occupation. He’s what cops and psychologists and criminal profilers call a “social marginal.” When a child goes missing — listen up, mom and dad; listen up, small-town deputy who thinks the kid might’ve just wandered off — you’d better get your ass in gear, regardless of what the statistics say. More than three quarters of children who are abducted and murdered are dead within the first three hours. Yes, the odds are overwhelming that a missing kid won’t be killed, but if he or she is in the hands of a killer, time is absolutely of the essence. Three hours. That’s how small the window is. Tracy Turner had been missing for 36 hours. When — okay, if — I had seen her this afternoon, she’d been missing for about 32 hours. I wasn’t sure what that meant. I had to hope that since she’d made it past the first three hours, that she’d make it for many more.

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You know, folks--yes, I know Biden is gone, but I miss his quiet handling of our government so very much that I'm still going to call you all, folks. Hope that is ok because I'm still trying to decide how to deal with this book... I want to talk about it, but I don't want to review it--after all it was in the running for an award. LOL... That doesn't mean much when you want to review it, and can't figure out how to... Let's face it, some books are purposely written to obfuscate. This one does it extremely well. Take, for instance, the very first video that I just had to share... If you can actually get to the review, let me know. All I got was some spooky music, a tag for a review...but...it's only 13 seconds! Does that tell us anything?

But, wait, perhaps that reviewer wondered just as I did. First, What in the World is that Title supposed to mean?! Now, I will share that I "kinda" got the idea of what he was trying for, but, frankly, to me, it wasn't worth the anxiety for this reader throughout the book... On the other hand, the author gives very few clues for the reader to enjoy in trying to understand what is going on.... Let me just say, this author pulled a "Columbo" on us, you know, right at the end of the book??? 

So here's the thing, the only way I could be truthful in talking about the book, as written, is to mislead... just like the author did... So do I, too, mislead and share about something happening which has little to do with the case of the missing girl? You see, my quandary. I feel like I'm getting the diversions from the president which have nothing to do with the supposed discussion... Yeah, it's that bad...

So, after all that, I'll tell you about the case that is being worked on by Roy Ballard...only...and not about all the other stuff you will be reading...which actually I would love to tell you about, but then people say that would be spoiling the book... even though you may never know about what else happened by talking about something that is ongoing but will never be explained until the very end... And I checked, the book description doesn't mention it either--obfuscation? Writer's prerogative, of course...

Anyway, Roy Ballard is a videographer who works for insurance companies to review cases that look questionable and confirm or prove that the individual is indeed faking an injury for which he's asked for time off coverage... He's good at this job and has been successful in remaking a past history which includes excessive drinking...

So, on a routine case of a man who supposedly hurt his hand by falling at his work, Roy notices something that was totally different from the information given to him... He sees a little girl at the door of this man's house... It appears that she is wearing the same clothes that had been identified when the amber alert was provided to the public... Of course, he reports it to the police hotline... But, in the meantime, since he has to do surveillance on the man anyway, which includes planting a "rock" video camera... he begins his own investigation... Obsessively...

Readers will learn that many years ago, his daughter was kidnapped from their car, when he had left her for a "few minutes..." From that point on, he has lived in torture, now divorced and alone, having worked through his loss with depression and all it entails, until he was able to begin his life again... He does have one female friend who helped him through all this and she soon is taking a job with Roy to learn and partner in his insurance cases... By the way, there is no licensing for this type of job, like a private investigator--the activities are similar, but normally aren't dangerous... This one turned out to be different since discussions with known acquaintances of the possible insurance scammer, were also potentially related to the kidnapping!

I was hooked, but I also had quickly come to question exactly who was doing what and who was the villain... Thus my wondering why this tactic without one hint which is extremely unusual in a mystery. And, actually, while I had been hooked from the beginning, I did not like the outcome as a book ending...

I did like Roy Ballard greatly and the other characters... May I recommend to the author obfuscation for the purpose of enticing doesn't always work for average readers... We've had years of that from our president...

P.S. You all missed out on the book's playlist, got too frustrated...LOL

GABixlerReviews