Dr. and Mrs. Spencer have recently moved to Litchfield as well. Fleeing from a mysterious scandal in Connecticut, they are trying to start over. A dysfunctional family at best, their son, Jake, is a belligerent teenager who resents the attention centering on his cute, happy four-year-old sister, Carrie.

Carrie and her mother, Ellen, are at the park one Saturday afternoon, and while Ellen is talking to her neighbor, Carrie disappears. Maggie and her partner draw the assignment and the search is mounted. A neighboring county has a missing child about the same age and a repeat sexual offender is found to have been in the park that day.

As the search for Carrie proceeds, Maggie is having flashbacks to her days as a victim of sexual abuse by her stepfather. It is hard to believe that in five years of police work that her past is reawakened at this time, but her agony parallels the investigation in the guise of inner dialogue.

This is the first Maggie Ryan mystery and, surprisingly, Maggie might need to take a few courses in police procedure before her next book. Maggie is guilty of some major infractions. She took very critical evidence without a search warrant and without a consent to search. Information was obtained through conversations with juveniles without their parents present, and a confession which guided the investigation was obtained after the accused asked for, but did not get, an attorney.

And Then She Was Gone introduces a dozen or more active characters, plus social issues such as child abuse and pornography. The problem is that the author has to pull all of this together in a mere 238 pages. So, it’s not surprising that the plot lurches along in short, choppy movements and that scenes, at times, shift abruptly. But despite this lack of flow and continuity, the book does provide action and an interesting small town setting

--Thea Davis