Ben Packard · #4

Beneath a Broken Sky

A Novel

Joshua Moehling

8.0 / 10
1 expectation

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.

Published
May 26, 2026
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Additional book details

Author

Joshua Moehling

Joshua Moehling writes crime fiction with a keen eye for both the shadowy depths of human nature and the quiet complexities of everyday life. Raised as an Army brat, he spent much of his childhood moving across the U.S. and Germany, before finding a home in Minneapolis. It’s in this varied landscape of experiences—marked by the stark realities of both rural America and the undercurrents of military life—that Joshua developed a fascination with stories that dwell in the gray areas of justice, morality, and identity. His debut novel, And There He Kept Her, introduced readers to Deputy Ben Packard, a small-town lawman with a complex inner life.…