A Review of "Angel Lost" by F.M. Meredith

For those fans of the Rocky Bluff PD mystery series, it's no surprise that Officer Stacey Wilbur is distracted at work. She's breaking in a new member of the police force on a sting operation to trap a flasher who has been frequenting the beach, all while she finalizes the arrangements for her wedding to Detective Doug Milligan.

The new guy, Officer Vaughn Aragon, is happy to assist her. He's a recent transfer from the LAPD, and though he wanted a quieter life, he wasn't prepared for the slow pace of Rocky Bluff. There's little night life, and his latest assignment is crowd control in front of a store window on Valley Boulevard--a store window reflecting the unexplained image of an angel.

As the wedding date closes in, it appears that there might be something more ominous going on at the beach than mere flashing, and when Stacey disappears on the morning of her wedding, the FBI steps in to handle the case.

Meredith's writing is part police procedural part soap opera--and I mean the latter in the most complimentary sense. She touches on the private lives of both supporting and main characters to show that they don't exist only when they share "screen time" with the lead. The result is an extended family of officers, wives, and children that the reader cares about, just as if the reader were a citizen in that seaside town of Rocky Bluff.