Moving Targets is a detective thriller about Miles Darien, a Lakeville, Wisconsin private investigator whose cases keep pulling him toward bigger questions about loyalty, justice, grief, and what it means to build a life with other people. It opens like a classic PI story, with stolen church artifacts and Miles’s quiet vow, “I will find them,” but it grows into something more personal and more emotionally loaded.

The book works best when it lets Miles investigate through conversation, observation, and old-fashioned persistence. The Holy Trinity case is a smart early mystery, full of fingerprints, misdirection, and small details that matter. Then the cold case involving Charles Powler shifts the story into darker territory, bringing in land, mining interests, racism, corruption, and violence. The author gives the investigations a steady, procedural rhythm without making them feel cold.

What gives the novel its heart is Miles’s circle: Ken, Ryan, Anne, Carl, George, Cora, Bobbie, Olivia, and Molly. Their banter makes the book feel lived-in, like you’re dropping into an ongoing community rather than just following a lone detective from clue to clue.

Moving Targets becomes a book about survival as much as solving crimes. Miles keeps working, but the work doesn’t magically fix him. The later sections, including the New York wedding, the Robin subplot, therapy, the move into Carl’s office, and the brief Santa Fe trip, show him trying to find a shape for his life after loss. The final discovery gives the ending a gentle lift without pretending grief is neatly resolved.

Moving Targets is a warm, character-driven detective thriller with several mysteries braided through one man’s changing life. It’s strongest when the cases and relationships feed each other, because Miles’s talent as an investigator comes from the same place as his friendships: he notices things, he cares, and he follows through. The book is part mystery, part community portrait, and part grief story, and that mix gives it more emotional weight than a standard case-of-the-week thriller.

Pages: 327 | ASIN: B0FNC4QS6Q