Drawn-out amateur investigation that reads like a cosy for all but the final 50 pages.
The Dark Room is a stand-alone novel that features two strong female protagonists joining forces in West Cork to get to the bottom of a thirty-year-old missing persons case and a mysterious death that they are each tenuously investigating.
Film location scout, Rachel Lambert, is sent reeling when her partner and documentary maker, Hunter, is knocked off of his bike in a hit-and-run and on the same day his cameras are stolen from the houseboat they share. That one of the subjects of Hunter’s latest documentary, homeless violinist Alfie Bows, has also vanished seems a coincidence too far. In a bid to evade any potential danger in London and discover what caused Alfie to drop out of society Rachel travels to Hare’s Landing in Ireland, the only place that Alfie ever mentioned and now a recently restored coastal country hotel. Meanwhile for Irish New York Messenger investigative crime reporter, Caroline Kelly, a lawsuit and suspension from her demanding role sees her return to West Cork for a much needed retreat. But ever the dogged journalist she can’t resist a mystery and the circumstances surrounding the suicide of the formerly family residences American owner, Honoria Smyth, are far from clear-cut. As the only two guests at rural Hare’s Landing with a hostile housekeeper reminiscent of Mrs Danvers, little or no Wi-Fi or mobile reception and some prying local residents Rachel and Caroline gravitate to each other, share the respective mysteries they are each searching for answers to and start to work together.
Between the villagers less than friendly welcome and Caroline experiencing a series of unsettling events including an intruder prowling in her accommodation, the two women start to realise they might have stumbled on something deadly. The narrative moves between the perspectives of Rachel and Caroline ensuring that neither of their respective investigations are left behind and the growing rapport between the two is the aspect of the book that I found the most enjoyable. Whilst I found nothing to dislike about either female lead I found neither of them made for particularly compelling reading and Caroline’s supernatural theories seemed like a blatant attempt to drum up some much needed atmosphere. Their combined discoveries owe rather more to simply stumbling over things (Caroline ‘finding’ a letter in a drawer and Rachel ‘finding’ a bank statement in Alfie’s bag) making it hard to feel convinced by their efforts. Caroline’s own backstory with copious details of her suspension from her job are also irrelevant and added nothing to the story for me, particularly as readers never actually see any of the people who feature in her elaborate story at close quarters and I felt too removed from it all to care.
The book is just shy of four hundred pages and I found the writing and action for over ninety percent of it all akin to that of a cosy and at times it felt like pulling teeth when quite a bit of what the two women unravel is pretty obvious from very early on. There is a great deal of filler material which also bogs down the pace and when in the final fifty pages events take a far darker turn it feels unbelievable after the simplicity of combined mystery element and the women’s fortuitous series of discoveries. One hundred pages shorter and a more complicated mystery element would have made for a far better read but as it stands The Dark Room is a little bit too lightweight and cosy for me to recommended.
Film location scout, Rachel Lambert, is sent reeling when her partner and documentary maker, Hunter, is knocked off of his bike in a hit-and-run and on the same day his cameras are stolen from the houseboat they share. That one of the subjects of Hunter’s latest documentary, homeless violinist Alfie Bows, has also vanished seems a coincidence too far. In a bid to evade any potential danger in London and discover what caused Alfie to drop out of society Rachel travels to Hare’s Landing in Ireland, the only place that Alfie ever mentioned and now a recently restored coastal country hotel. Meanwhile for Irish New York Messenger investigative crime reporter, Caroline Kelly, a lawsuit and suspension from her demanding role sees her return to West Cork for a much needed retreat. But ever the dogged journalist she can’t resist a mystery and the circumstances surrounding the suicide of the formerly family residences American owner, Honoria Smyth, are far from clear-cut. As the only two guests at rural Hare’s Landing with a hostile housekeeper reminiscent of Mrs Danvers, little or no Wi-Fi or mobile reception and some prying local residents Rachel and Caroline gravitate to each other, share the respective mysteries they are each searching for answers to and start to work together.
Between the villagers less than friendly welcome and Caroline experiencing a series of unsettling events including an intruder prowling in her accommodation, the two women start to realise they might have stumbled on something deadly. The narrative moves between the perspectives of Rachel and Caroline ensuring that neither of their respective investigations are left behind and the growing rapport between the two is the aspect of the book that I found the most enjoyable. Whilst I found nothing to dislike about either female lead I found neither of them made for particularly compelling reading and Caroline’s supernatural theories seemed like a blatant attempt to drum up some much needed atmosphere. Their combined discoveries owe rather more to simply stumbling over things (Caroline ‘finding’ a letter in a drawer and Rachel ‘finding’ a bank statement in Alfie’s bag) making it hard to feel convinced by their efforts. Caroline’s own backstory with copious details of her suspension from her job are also irrelevant and added nothing to the story for me, particularly as readers never actually see any of the people who feature in her elaborate story at close quarters and I felt too removed from it all to care.
The book is just shy of four hundred pages and I found the writing and action for over ninety percent of it all akin to that of a cosy and at times it felt like pulling teeth when quite a bit of what the two women unravel is pretty obvious from very early on. There is a great deal of filler material which also bogs down the pace and when in the final fifty pages events take a far darker turn it feels unbelievable after the simplicity of combined mystery element and the women’s fortuitous series of discoveries. One hundred pages shorter and a more complicated mystery element would have made for a far better read but as it stands The Dark Room is a little bit too lightweight and cosy for me to recommended.