Review: In the Darkness

In the Darkness by Mike Omer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I measure the worth of a thriller on on how quickly I finish it after crossing the 50% mark. To me, a solid murder mystery has a slow build, making sure that you get to know the characters, the situation at hand, and the perspective of the killer as well. Once the plot is well established, it should be a breakneck race to the end.

This book definitely does that in spades. This morning, I was roughly 45% of the way through it.... and I just finished it now. The plot largely reminds me of the CSI episode where Greg is buried alive or the Ryan Reynolds movie called "Buried," but with much more meaning and nuance. I also saw shades of Red Dragon in some of the elements.

The novel does an excellent job of exploring the current murder spree, the continued, overall Zoe/Glover arc, and a gripping analysis of our social media obsessed world. The best fictional serial killers are the ones who make you think "Hey this guy might actually have a point, were it not for the whole murdering business." The person who commits these grimes does that, but I would have liked to see a little more into their backstory overall.

I read the first Zoe Bentley mystery as my Kindle First read in summer/fall 2018 and was excited to get this one as an ARC from NetGalley. All opinions are my own. I recommend both books in the series and cannot wait to see where it goes next!

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