- Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
- Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks; First Edition edition (May 1 2007)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0312355157
- ISBN-13: 978-0312355159
- Product Dimensions: 15.7 x 10.7 x 3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 113 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,082,188 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
In this brooding if uneven thriller from Shamus-winner Judson (The Bone Orchard), residents of the Hamptons are shocked at the drowning deaths of several young men found in the icy winter waters of Long Island's Shinnecock Bay. The grieving parents of one victim, devout Catholics, hire local PI Reggie Clay to prove that their son's death wasn't suicide. Grief emerges as a persistent theme, as Judson explores the struggles of several downtrodden characters, notably Deacon Kane, a college professor and writer whose only son accidentally drowned a few years back. Kane seeks solace in the bottle and in an obsessive affair with a married woman. Kane eventually realizes someone is trying to frame him, but who? Is it Colette Auster, the young temptress sitting in on his writing classes, or perhaps the eccentric septuagenarian Professor Krause, whose parents were tortured and killed by the Gestapo? Judson does a terrific job of setting up a complex plot that's full of surprises, even if the pieces fit together a bit too conveniently in spots.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
Deacon Kane has been in a downward spiral since the accidental drowning of his son several years ago. He's hitting the bottle, having an affair with a married woman, and barely hanging on to his job as a Long Island writing teacher. Then one of his students, Larry Foster, turns up dead, and the police consider him a "person of interest" because he can't account for some critical time periods. Meanwhile, PI Reggie Clay, trying to prove Foster's death wasn't a suicide and knowing that other teenage boys have died in a similar manner, enlists Kane's help in looking for a serial killer. When it becomes clear to Kane that he may have been set up, he doesn't know whom to trust, and Clay and his colleagues begin to believe Kane just might be the killer after all. Told from multiple points of view, populated with well-drawn moral and amoral characters, and permeated with violence, this riveting albeit bleak crime novel offers a strong sense of place along with thoughtful rumination about doing the right thing and finding redemption for past actions. Sue O'Brien
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.7 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)
12 of 15 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Moody, passionate and haunted, Jun 5 2006
By Marcus Sakey "Bestselling Novelist" - Published on Amazon.com
Ce commentaire est de: The Darkest Place (Hardcover)
There are serial killer novels, and then there are literary gems that involve serial killers. Dan Judson's THE DARKEST PLACE is the latter, a gorgeous, ambitious novel equal parts exploration of loss and up-till-dawn page-turner.The plot, which follows the investigation of a series of drowning murders in the bleak post-tourist winter of Long Island's Shinnecock Bay, is filled with enough twists and reversals to keep diehard mystery readers guessing. But it's the characters that make the book hypnotic; wounded, wanting, and set on a collision course, they are richly textured and completely believable. Judson's deep empathy makes their pain and desire and trembling hope personal, and you'll find they haunt you long after you close the book.
The result is a can't-put-it-down thriller reminiscent of the best in the genre, works like MYSTIC RIVER and CLOCKERS.
Bravo!
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Worth the Wait, Jun 10 2006
By Kerry Kennedy - Published on Amazon.com
Ce commentaire est de: The Darkest Place (Hardcover)
I read Judson's previous books (The Bone Orchard and The Poisoned Rose) and enjoyed them both. When I heard he had a new book coming out after a few years, I was psyched and got it the first day it came out. It was worth the wait.THE DARKEST PLACE was haunting, dark, filled with real characters who had experienced loss and dealt with it in vastly different ways. There's deep characterization in this novel and that's risky sometimes because there's a fine line between a literary mystery and a bore. But Judson keeps the pace up so well and dangles just enough information to the reader that makes the book impossible to put down once you're a couple chapters into it. The characters aren't all clearly cut good guys and bad guys, just like in real life and you find yourself rooting for them, wanting them to succeed and turn their lives around. There's even a shoutout to fans of his previous two books, if you're paying attention enough to one particular character, and I loved that. It was like being given a glimpse of an old friend I haven't heard from in a while.
I'd recommend this book to fans of thrillers, mysteries, and literary novels. Can't wait for Judson's next one.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Where Angels Fear to Tread, Sep 20 2006
By Kevin Killian - Published on Amazon.com
Ce commentaire est de: The Darkest Place (Hardcover)
Novelist Deacon Kane is haunted by the death of his son by drowning four years ago, and his reputation has slid in the college where he teaches creative writing and English lit, slid to a point where everyone's watching him to see if he makes it to class, which he rarely does any more. His boss, Dolan, really has it in for him. Just one thing seems to amuse Deacon Kane, his affair with a married woman, Meg, a painter with a huge house on top of Peconic Bay, who hustles him out of her bed whenever she thinks her husband might arrive, but otherwise she seems totally uncaring and absent. It isn't a good relationship, but hey, any port in a storm especially if you're a human wreck.Meanwhile someone is running around abducting male students (18, 19 years of age) and somehow managing to drown them in a way that leaves forensics baffled. Could these deaths be accidental?
Possible Spoilers Ahead--Minor:
The police are beginning to believe that Dunk is behind them. Maybe he's gone right off the deep end. Maybe he's a serial killer with a sexual kink that forces him to re-play the tragedy of his son's drowning by casting older boys in his young son's role as victim. His frequent blackouts leave him without an alibi.
Daniel Judson embodies this mystery within a David Lynch atmosphere of conspiracy, cover-up, immoral doings, and a mysterious giant black man who seems to be watching out for Dunk--or is he trying to kill him? Judson is great at atmosphere, and Eastern Long Island has never been portrayed more creepily.
What I didn't like was the absurd plot, which depends on an extraordinary amount of coincidence. On the one hand there is a criminal mastermind with far too many helpers; on the other hand, there's a good bunch of people whose motivations are just as murky as the killers. I never cared once for Duncan Kane, and on top of everything else Judson really makes women look like monsters. That's his prerogative of course, and it does add to the noir-ish feel of his book, but by the end we all have a different idea of what he imagines the "darkest place" to actually be.
Finally, when the mask is torn off the face of the killer, and the reader can't remember who he is, you're in trouble.
Otherwise a grand read by one of the genre's best technicians.
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