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As visitors of this web site already know, when
it comes to mysteries and thrillers, I favor British authors, and
this is for a reason. Almost every time I pick up a whodunit by an
American writer, I end up being disappointed (and since I am
neither American nor British, I cannot be accused of being biased!). Of course there have
been notable exceptions, but unfortunately, Darkness Peering
is not one of them... The novel
intrigued me for a while, but one can really
judge a mystery, unlike other novels, only after the last page is
turned, and often the ending
tells if
the novel is good or not. For me, a good mystery with a lame ending is
a failed mystery (once again, there have been notable exceptions)...
The story line of Darkness Peering is the
following: In Flowering Dogwood, a small town in Maine,
Melissa D'Agostino, a fourteen-year-old girl with Down syndrome, is
found dead by strangulation. All the inhabitants are uneasy,
thinking their small town harbors a cruel killer who attacked a
defenseless, handicapped girl. Police Chief Nalen Storrow, who has a past of abuse and alcoholism, is
horrified to
find that a lot of paths lead to the same suspect: his own son,
Billy, who was already involved in the killing of stray cats some
months before...
Eighteen years later, Detective Rachel Storrow, Nalen's daughter, decides to reopen the case
(which was
never solved) after Melissa's father, a homeless man, dies. A few
days later, two
gruesome murders put the police on edge: has Melissa's murderer
awoken after such a long time? Once again, suspicions about Rachel's
brother emerge. She will have to race against the clock to find the
murderer who destroyed Flowering Dogwood's peace...
As I have already said, this novel was
promising: the plot is interesting and fast-paced after a rather
slow but tense start. Unfortunately, I found the ending pretty
implausible and very unsatisfying (I should say "doubly"
unsatisfying), which retrospectively ruins the whole story. There
are also some loose ends: some things are just never explained...
Finally,
there is a scene that reminds so much of The Silence of the Lambs
that it almost becomes a plagiarism. The style is average and
full of clichés, and the characters lack depth, but this could have
been forgivable had the solution been any good. Well, despite the
excellent amazon.com rating, this mystery didn't work for me...
Rating:  
© Discussing Books, 04/01/2004
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Critiques