The Dark Place: A Karl Kane Novel [Paperback]

 

 

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Young homeless women and drug addicts are being abducted before being brutally mutilated and murdered, and a city is held in a grip of unspeakable terror. The cops are unable - or unwilling - to apprehend the elusive serial killer, and corrupt politicians turn a seemingly blind and almost approving eye to the catalogue of murders.
The perpetrator is cunning, wealthy and influential. More importantly, he has never once made a mistake in his grisly calling - until now. By abducting Katie, the young daughter of legendary private investigator, Karl Kane, the killer has just made his first mistake, which could well turn out to be his last.
Blaming himself for his daughter`s abduction, Karl Kane must now reach down to the darkest recesses of his troubled soul and mind, to become as cunning and merciless as the killer - but even that may not be enough to penetrate the fortress-like lair where Karl suspects the killer keeps his victims. There is only one man capable of helping Kane attack the â''dark place`, a man despised and hated by Detective Inspector Mark Wilson, but even that help becomes as elusive as any Karl will get from the cops.
From the nail-biting beginning to the explosive ending, Karl Kane`s nightmarish journey forces upon him a decision that changes his life forever, and forces him to look into the abyss of no return.

What the critics said: Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
While Millar's second gritty crime novel featuring Belfast PI Karl Kane (after Bloodstorm) doesn't have the same punch as its predecessor, readers with an appetite for gore will be engrossed. Soon after Kane agrees to look into the case of an alleged runaway, Martina Ferris, a friendly pathologist tips off Kane that he's examining two corpses whose profiles match Martina's and whose liver and kidneys have been removed. If that barbarity isn't enough, the victims' bodies carried too much weight for their skeletons, suggesting that they were force fed. Once a chief suspect emerges'Bobby Hannah, son of a renowned surgeon, who shot his mother to death, allegedly by accident'Kane and Hannah engage in a cat-and-mouse game that strikes increasingly close to home for the detective. While it's hard to come up with much new in a serial killer plot, Millar distinguishes himself from many of his contemporaries in the genre with taut writing and a memorable lead character. (Jan.)
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From Booklist
In the 1930s, Raymond Chandler created the quintessential hard-boiled private eye, Philip Marlowe, drawing on Depression-era hard times to set the dark, sometimes desperate tone. Over the years, much of that darkness has been lost in hard-boiled fiction, with latter-day Marlowes like Robert B. Parker's Spenser spending as much time in the kitchen as walking the mean streets. Millar's private eye prowls the alleys and lanes of Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the ambience returns the hard-boiled novel to its tonal roots. In The Dark Place, a wisecracking Karl Kane sets out to find a teenage girl gone missing. The bodies of similar young women have turned up minus various organs and with disturbing evidence of having been fattened, like foie gras geese, in order to be consumed by a mad aristocrat. Matters worsen dramatically when Kane's own daughter goes missing. This is hard-edged crime with a vengeance, but it is handled with a finesse and deftness that Chandler devotees will admire greatly. --Steve Glassman
Review
"His writing is very, very dark, and reminds me a lot of Andrew Vachss and the Burke novels. The Dark Place is at the intense end of hard-boiled...a thrilling novel, very powerful.
--Declan Hughes


'Crime writer Millar's Karl Kane series has been compared to Marlowe, and it's easy to see why, once you're read this little gem. Go buy it. You'll love it.'



--[...], Book Reviews

"With four novels already, and numerous awards for his fiction, Millar has established himself as a big player in the modern thriller scene." --Books Ireland

"An addictive page-turner, like Millar's past work, this is not a book to read alone if you suffer from a nervous disposition."



--Irish World

Sam Millar Author of the Month. Five Stars
'Millar is a wonderful find who should instantly be placed on top of discerning reader's crime shortlist.'
Crime Squad

--Crime Squad

While it s hard to come up with much new in a serial killer plot, Millar distinguishes himself from many of his contemporaries in the genre with taut writing and a memorable lead character. --Publishers Weekly

Millar s private eye prowls the alleys and lanes of Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the ambience returns the hard-boiled novel to its tonal roots. . . Hard-edged crime with a vengeance, but it is handled with a finesse and deftness that Chandler devotees will admire greatly. --Booklist
Product Description
While it's hard to come up with much new in a serial killer plot, Millar distinguishes himself from amany of his contemporaries in the genre with taut writing and a memorable lead character.""--Publishers Weekly. ""Millar's private eye prowls the alleys and lanes of Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the ambience returns the hard-boiled novel to its tonal roots. . . Hard-edged crime with a vengeance, but it is handled with a finesse and deftness that Chandler devotees will admire greatly.""--Booklist. Young homeless women and drug addicts are being abducted before being brutally mutilated and murdered, and a city is held in the grip of unspeakable terror. The cops are unable - or unwilling - to apprehend the elusive serial killer who has never once made a mistake in his grisly calling - until now. By abducting Katie, the young daughter of private investigator Karl Kane, the killer has just made his first mistake, which could well turn out to be his last.

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