Review
"The abduction of four-year-old Carrie Spencer from a busy playground shatters her family's ideal middle class suburban life in Litchfield, Texas. But that's nothing compared to the town's panic when her body is discovered a few days later.
And Then She Was Gone examines American Family life through the eyes of Maggie Ryan, a detective on the Litchfield police force, struggling to determine who the killer is. Why did Dr. Spencer, Carrie's father, have to leave Connecticut, and why is the family so secretive about it? Why is Mrs. Spencer so overprotective? Why is Jake, Carrie's brother, so angry and resentful toward his dead sister? How does their behavior relate to the recent release of convicted child molester Brian Westmoreland? And has Westmoreland returned to his old M.O.?
Maggie's search for the answers to these questions will enthrall you. In addition, McBride knows how to effectively use the fictional investigation to comment on many controversial areas of our society, including child abuse, child abduction, sexual discrimination, and the early release of dangerous criminals. Yet McBride's style neatly prevents her agenda from detracting from the story. The plot runs very smoothly, flowing from one scene to the next....McBride left me anxious to discover how Maggie reveals all of the family's secrets and finally identifies the killer....Maggie Ryan will be a welcome addition to the literary detective force." -- Review by Stephen Metherell-Smith for Crescent Blues, 05/29/99.
"The mother turned away for just a few minutes while her daughter played in the park. She turned back, AND THEN SHE WAS GONE, which is the title of a first novel by Susan McBride. What follows is the story of how the police deal with the missing child and, when she is found dead, how they discover the murderer. It is told mostly from the viewpoint of Detective Maggie Ryan and sometimes from that of the mother, Ellen Spencer. Many do not like child jeopardy books. They bother me, but they address very real problems in our society. Ms. McBride removes some of the repulsion and fear we all feel by focusing on the search, first for the child and then for the killer, and on the people around the child. She does not, thankfully, dwell on what was happening to the little girl.
The detective, Maggie Ryan, is well-drawn and engaging. She is repressing some personal problems that may well get in the way of the solving the crime. The parents of the victim are also fairly well-drawn characters. The story moves along quite rapidly and smoothly. The book was easy to read and kept me absorbed to the end. Ms. McBride has an eye for detail and traces vivid word pictures for the reader. The images were clear and engaging and made the story easy to perceive.
There are quite clearly four people who might have done this act. I thought I knew who the killer was, but I was never quite sure until the last page whether I was right. There was also suspense and clues that could point several different ways. I was moved by the story in the end. I hope we will be watching Maggie Ryan solve many more crimes in this small Texas suburb of Dallas." -- Review by Sally Fellows for Dorothy L.
From the Back Cover
Although Susan McBride has written for a number of years, AND THEN SHE WAS GONE is her first novel and the recipient of Mayhaven Publishing's First Annual Award for Fiction. AND THEN SHE WAS GONE was also a finalist in the St. Martin's Press Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Contest and won the National Writer's Association's Best Novel Contest. A Journalism graduate of the University of Kansas, the author is presently at work on another mystery featuring Maggie Ryan.
