Rhiann Fahey is going through a tough time in her life. Her husband has recently died and her son, Jimmy, is acting out -- cutting school and drinking. Adding to the problem are the unwanted advances of her dead husband's friend and fellow cop, Rory Sinster. She's trying to get her life in order -- going back to work, dealing patiently with her son's errant behavior and telling Sinster that she's simply not interested.

Then Rhiann gets a new neighbor with a mysterious past. John Devlin turns out to be a good neighbor, offering Rhiann help and getting Jimmy off the street by giving him a job. Jimmy continues to prove problematic, however, when he looks up his birth father's family. While in a neighboring city visiting this family, Jimmy falls in love with a mysterious girl, further complicating everyone's lives.

When Rory Sinster tries to discredit John Devlin and goes so far as to physically assault him, Rhiann steps in and defends John. All of the activity in the present has direct ties to everyone's pasts. These ties slowly unravel and Rhiann finds that John Devlin is even more of a mystery than she originally thought.

I really enjoyed this book. It's written in first-person, but with each chapter being a different person's point of view -- John Devlin, Rhiann Fahey and Jimmy Fahey. I really like it when a book has a lot of dialogue and can still tell a good story and with M.I.A., Michael Allen Dymmoch has succeeded in doing just that. It's a story about people and Dymmoch crafts her characters so that you really get a sense of who they are. In order to do this, however, the first half of the book is basically exposition for the rest of the story. That bothered me at first, but upon further reflection, I liked it. I was drawn into the story despite the lack of a real hook until about halfway through. M.I.A. is a compelling and well-written story about lost love, missing friends and new beginnings.