The Long and Faraway Gone by Lou Berney

   Well, this book was a surprise.   It showed up on my bookperks for 1.99 and the synopsis sounded so interesting that I thought I would give it a try.   Now, I'm not much for mysteries usually.  I got disappointed when they are predictable and I can usually ferret out the "bad guy"  in just a few chapters.  This book was a wonderful surprise.

This is the story of two crimes that both happen in the summer of 1986 and that have remained unsolved for all these years.   The first the disappearance of a young girl.  Julianna and her older sister, Genni, go to a fair.   They win prizes and eat cotton candy.  But Genni has a problem,  she's an addict and she decided to leave her little sister to go find a high.  Julianna never sees her older sister again and she spends her life looking for new witnesses, refining her story to the police and trying to figure out what happened to her sister.

Wyatt is a private detective who lives in Los Angeles.  A favor brings him back to his home town of Oklahoma City, OK.  In the summer of 1986, he was invovled in a terrible shooting at a movie theater.   All his friends and co-workers died but, for some inexplicable reason, Wyatt is left alive.  Now his past has caught up with him.

These two paths intertwine.  The story is brilliantly told and keeps you hanging on your seat.   4 out of 5 stars.