Working mother

Working mothers sometimes have to take their kids to work with them, which can become problematic when a mother works as a police detective. When I reviewed the first book in Michael Hiebert's Alvin, Alabama series of mysteries, Dream with Little Angels (April 11, 2014), my objection was that Detective Leah Teal took her 11-year-old son Abe to too many crime scenes and interrogations to be believable. Even a bad mother would be unlikely to do this, and Leah is portrayed as a good mother.

Abe is 12 years old in the second novel in the series, Close to the Broken Hearted, and while he remains a main character and the narrator of much of the story, both Hiebert and Leah show better sense in keeping the boy, who thinks he's a better detective than his mother, away from most of the action. However, both Abe and his older sister, Caroline. happen to be in the car when their mother gets the call that sends her rushing to the novel's violent climax.

The story centers on Sylvie Carson, a young mother who has been emotionally disturbed since Preacher Eli accidentally killed her younger brother years before. Now the preacher has been released from prison, and Sylvie claims he is harassing her. Strange things are happening at her home, open doors and odd noises, and Sylvie keeps calling the police department to complain about Preacher Eli. Only Leah believes these complaints are not just in Sylvie's imagination.

Meanwhile, Abe and his friend Dewey provide comic relief, playing with their wooden swords and spying on Preacher Eli while disguised as trees. A subplot involves discoveries about Abe's father, who died when the boy was very young. Hiebert gives us a compelling story and lots of small town Alabama atmosphere. What's hard to believe this time is not children being taken to crime scenes but the fact that the author hails not from Alabama but from Canada.