Fear the Dark

When serial killer expert Darby McCormick is called in by the Red Hill Police department in Colorado to investigate as number of horrific set-piece murders of entire families, she finds herself in a town beset not only by secrets from its once healthy past, but by competing forces within the local police department in Red Hill and Brewster, as well as the FBI.

Fortunately, she has a friend in FBI forensics expert ‘Coop’ Cooper.

What she also finds is the aftermath of a killer who leaves no traces, no obvious motive (least of all sexual) and yet appears to know everything going on in the investigation – even to minute details known only by the police and FBI. Worse, he/she has the ability to tap into Darby’s movements, right down to taking nude photos of Darby inside her own hotel bedroom and distributing them among the entire law-enforcement community.

With most of the action focussing on Darby and her pursuit of anything that might leads to the killer, occasional chapters are given over to another voice; the voice of a killer in the local community who appears to have a wife or partner who is fully aware of what he/she is doing.

This book seems at the outset to be standard serial killer stuff, down to the eventual targeting of Darby herself in order to disrupt her investigation. But there are twists in the tail (including one involving the disappearance of a young girl many years before) that will defy the reader all the way down the line.

It’s tense, dark and satisfying, and continues the growing run of the Darby McCormick series of novels that will please all Chris Mooney fans.

And rightly so.