Finding Amy

July 3, 2006
Last seen in a Brighton Avenue apartment of Portland, Maine on a Saturday night in October of 2001, Amy St. Laurent, 25, had gone out to show a visiting friend the city's Old Port section. Loughlin was then a Lieutenant (now Captain) and 24-year veteran of the Portland Police Department; Flora is a former assistant attorney general for the state and the author of seven mystery novels (Chosen for Death, etc.). Loughlin's recorded entries about the case-his thoughts, emotions and reactions to the investigation-amplify Flora's straightforward but potent narrative as detectives search for the grave, find it (about halfway through the book) and build a case against a leading suspect. This is a feast for proceduralists, giving countless small details of the work-a-day slogging involved, an effort that leads the department to make good on the mystery, catching Amy's murderer, and making the case stick.