Carla Day has a full plate, with her full-time job as
assistant director at Green Beach Manor (a senior living
center), her part-time job as a deputy sheriff and taking
care of her father, who is in the early stage of
Alzheimer's. When Cherie Ghent, the newly appointed sheriff,
takes her to see a pronouncement by a teenage girl—the
mother of an indigo baby—they arrive in Stanton's Mill just
in time to see her fall from a ledge. But was it an
accident, suicide or was Tamina pushed to keep her quiet?
Stanton's Mill is a throwback to the '60s, with its
eccentric cast of townspeople. But despite its apparent
openness and friendliness, there's a hidden darkness under
the surface. All of the latest unease and unrest seems to
stem from the appearance of Anneliese Wertiger several
months ago. She swooped into town and announces the presence
of so-called indigo babies—children with extraordinary
talents and a distinct indigo aura. But soon thereafter,
indigo babies start disappearing.
Assigned by Cherie to investigate Tamina's fall and the
disappearance of the indigo babies, Carla finds it hard to
get straight answers from the people of Stanton's Mill. Are
any infants actually missing? No one seems to know that for
a fact, although rumors say that there are. What did Tamina
know that she was going to impart upon the townspeople
before her fall? And what does Carla's dad, archaeologist Ed
Day, know about Ta-Ent—his name for Tamina—and her secret?
It may impossible for her to unearth the information trapped
in his mind. But as more violence follows, it becomes
imperative that Carla uncover the truth.
I found DARK AURA to be a very disjointed, hard-to-follow
read. The use of present tense was also jarring. Also
disturbing to me was the seemingly inept sheriff's
department of Del Oro County. Readers who've enjoyed the
previous two books in the series would probably enjoy Ms.
O'Hehir's latest mystery, but others may find it to be as
problematic as I did.
With her genre-bending mix of literary and crime fiction,
Diana O'Hehir again plots a mystery as intricate as the
inner workings of the mind.
When an indigo child speaks, people listen. Allegedly
radiating an unusual purplish glow, the extraordinary beings
are mysterious and otherworldly. And when one of them,
fifteen-yearold Tamina Kerry, falls off a ledge to her
death, part-time Deputy Sheriff Carla Day investigates. Was
her death an accident, suicide-or murder? Carla has
experience with those who sometimes fall out of touch with
reality, since her father, Professor Day, has early
Alzheimer's. Like much of the town of Stanton Mills,
California, he had befriended Tamina-but confused her with
Ta-Ent, an ancient Egyptian mythical journeywoman among the
dead. With her final breath, Tamina spoke of her baby,
another indigo child-who had disappeared. Now Carla must
rely on the word of a hysterical grandmother and a
drug-addled young man claiming to be the baby's father-and
search the recesses of her father's fading mind for whatever
clues he can provide.