Among the Departed: A Constable Molly Smith Mystery

Vicki Delany
Poisoned Pen Press (2011)
ISBN 9781590588895
Reviewed by Deb Shunamon for Reader Views (8/11)


She did it again. Vicki Delany writes some of the most comfortable crime stories I have ever read. They are great because she writes realistically of murder cases, and she had me slapping my head in disbelief that I was not astute enough to even consider the real solution.  And they are comfortable due to the delightful cast of small-town citizens split between red-necks, hippies and tourists, as well as Constable Molly “Moonbeam” Smith, her RCMP boyfriend, and Sergeant John Winters of the Trafalgar City Police.

Another possible murder is revealed after helping to find a lost little boy, and the unfolding of a sad story behind scattered human bones is told within an overall theme of people moving on with their lives. Characters that I consider old friends try to keep going, such as Molly's mom after the death of her husband. Molly herself tries to make peace with her past, and John Winters and his ex-model wife hope they can ride out a rough patch in their marriage. There are some new characters with much less prestigious lives, who have taken what life has dealt them and are trying to survive in their own sordid and dangerous ways, harming innocent people along the way. In this novel romantic, parental, familial love and friendship sometimes goes terribly wrong, and Delaney has her characters reveal some of the ways ordinary people deal with it all.

In “Among the Departed,” readers are forced to face up to some of their own assumptions the same as the characters in the book. That the author does her research and explains how real investigative work is done, as well as promotes police officers as heroes, is delightful in my opinion.  I also think this is the most skillfully written book of the Molly Smith series so far, and one which I had no choice but to devour in two sittings. I simply had to know what was going to happen to my old friends and the new characters, to the captivating tourist town in the mountains, and to the local family the human bones were traced back to. Keep these books coming, Vicki Delany.

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