Beneath a Broken Sky

I have read the previous three books in this small-town police procedural. I have enjoyed the tension and particularly, the main character Ben Packard, whose personal life is woven into the books, including his struggles as a gay police officer in a very small conservative town in Minnesota. The secondary cast is also strong and the banter between him and his police partner Jill Thielen is delightfully snarky (my favourite kind).

Unfortunately, I didn't find this fourth installment as strong as the previous book. There were a lot of subplots without enough focus on any of them. There's murder, some romance, a connection to Ben's past, arborists and roofers, oh my! 

Personally, I thought the story felt convoluted with too much focus on the itinerant storm chasing roofers (and comments about Canadian wildfire smoke - we're sorry, eh!) than the actual murder. The pacing picks up in the last quarter, but readers will have to be patient to see how all of the pieces the story fit together. 

This wasn't my favourite book of the Ben Packard series so far, but I enjoy slipping into Ben's world and seeing how Moehling blends Ben's personal life and emotional elements into his suspense stories and look forward to reading the next book in the series.

Disclaimer: Thanks to the publisher for the complimentary advanced digital copy of this book which was given to me in exchange for my honest review.

My Rating: 3 stars

Author: Joshua Moehling

Genre: Suspense

Series: Ben Packard 4

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press

First Published: May 26, 2026

Read: May 23-27, 2026

Book Description from GoodReads: From award-nominated and USA Today bestselling author Joshua Moehling comes a tense, atmospheric thriller about one detective's search for a mysterious killer in the chaos following a deadly storm…

Detective Ben Packard has put down roots in the small town of Sandy Lake. A difficult thing to do; it's a hot, miserable summer, and a tornado has swept through causing irreparable damage. Trees are felled, homes destroyed, and people are desperate. Worse, the storm has also blown in a group of storm chasers with something to hide.

Then a woman is killed in her home. The mother of a gay boy and unpopular among the locals for the hell she recently raised at school when the administration refused to punish a group of students who were bullying her son, there's almost too many suspects to count. 

But to Packard, the case hits close to home. And when someone from his past shows up on his doorstep out of the blue, he realizes he'll have to confront the reality of navigating life as a gay man in a small town bent on tradition, no matter the cost.

The heat suffocates. The violence simmers. Before the summer is out, someone else will die.