She Treads Softly: The Dark Corners of the Night

Sunday, February 16, 2020

The Dark Corners of the Night

The Dark Corners of the Night by Meg Gardiner
Blackstone Publishing: 2/18/20
eBook review copy; 384 pages
ISBN-13: 9781982627515
UNSUB #3

The Dark Corners of the Night by Meg Gardiner is a very, very highly recommended thriller/procedural and the third book in the UNSUB series featuring FBI behavioral analyst Caitlin Hendrix.

There is a killer on the loose in Los Angeles who calls himself the Midnight Man, the legion of the night. He sneaks into homes of families in the middle of the night and kills the parents, first the man, then the woman, but he leaves the children alive, terrorized witnesses to his crimes. The attacks are escalating and the FBI has been called in to help track down the serial killer. Caitlin Hendrix is still reeling from the bombing at the hospital where her best friend was seriously injured six months earlier. Now Caitlyn is back in Los Angeles to assist in the hunt for the Midnight Man, but as she delves into the case she begins to notice some settling clues to the killer's identity.

Those of you who love your thrillers and procedurals will want to immediately get your hands on The Dark Corners of the Night. It is a tense, action packed, nail biting investigation into the identity of a killer and just as incredible as the first two books in the series, UNSUB and Into the Black Nowhere. While you can read The Dark Corners of the Night as a stand-alone, the first two books in the series are just as exceptional. This is a stay-up-all-night-reading thriller.

As expected, this is a superbly written novel with a solid plot where clues, revelations, and suppositions about the killer are shocking and lead to stunning conclusions. The search for the killer is riveting and will completely hold your attention. At this point, having read the previous two books in the series, I know these characters and their flaws, however Gardiner does have forward movement in the character development that make them even more human.

The heart stopping ending to the search is perfectly executed and Gardiner also ends the narrative on a positive note for Caitlyn. This is another stay-up-all-night-stuck-at-the-airport book... in a well lit area near security and lots of foot traffic.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Blackstone Publishing.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.