2 out of 4 stars
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Darkness by Matthew Nicholls is an action/murder mystery novel set in the Australian town of Mulwulla. Mulwulla is a typical small town that is free from major crime. The local police deal with the occasional DUI, disorderly conduct, or traffic violation. Officer Angela Smith grew up in Mulwalla. She longs for the excitement of being an officer in a big city. Angela does not realize that things are getting ready to change in Mulwalla. The town drunk, Billy Williams, overhears a phone conversation indicating one of the residents is going to be murdered. No one believes him until Billy is killed. Angela and her father/boss, Sergeant Mick Young, investigate the case. Also helping with the investigation is Senior Detective Daniel McKenzie. McKenzie has recently moved to Mulwulla from the big city. He is attracted to Angela and welcomes the investigation as an excuse to spend extra time with her. Can McKenzie convince Angela to give him a chance? Why was Billy killed? Evil is hiding in Mulwalla and it will take their joint efforts to solve the case.
Darkness has a lot of characters. The author took a lot of time at the beginning of the novel introducing them and providing their background information. I could understand why this was done after I finished reading the novel. However, the book is an action/murder mystery. There was very little action in the first quarter of the book. It was quite boring to me. There were several times that I considered abandoning the novel. I am glad that I did not give up because it ended up being a great story. The killer was quite sinister and cunning. There were several twists at the end that I did not see coming.
My biggest criticism would be that the novel needs to be edited. There are a lot of grammar, spelling and general errors that are quite abundant throughout the novel. The author needs to do a very thorough proofreading. A few examples of errors are: strait-laced instead of straight-laced, Veges instead of Veggies, Working Class instead of working class, “What is he’s out there” instead of “Why is he out there?” The errors did not detract from my enjoyment or understanding of the plot. But they are distracting and make the novel seem less polished.
Another criticism is that there are two secondary characters named Helen in the novel. The first Helen is Angela’s best friend. The other Helen is the hardware store owner's wife. A lot of the interactions between the characters occurs in the local pub. The dialog in the novel often lacked description on which character was talking. I found it very confusing when they would discuss Helen.
Overall, I did enjoy reading the novel. The main characters of Angela, Mick, Mick’s wife and McKenzie were all very well presented. There was enough background information provided to make them appear realistic. Their interactions were believable and the dialog helped progress the story. The minor characters also added to the story. The dialog and behavior at the pub is consistent with what you would expect from a small town where everyone knows everything about everyone. It was fun reading the pub conversations because there was a lot of sharing of the local gossip.
I rate Darkness 2 out of 4 stars. There is a lot of good writing in this novel. I would love to have been able to give it a higher rating. I lowered the rating 1 star because the book needs to be professionally edited. There are significant errors throughout the book that could not be ignored. I took away an additional star because the early chapters of the novel needed more action to keep my attention. This is a good novel that has the potential to become a great novel with a few changes. I enjoyed the story and was completely caught off guard by the ending. This book would appeal to fans of Stephen King because of the monster hiding in plain sight theme.
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Darkness
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