"Dark is not a place, but a person, and you would be wise to be afraid...very afraid of him."
Reviewed by Betty Cox
Posted May 23, 2011
Thriller | Suspense
Three years ago, Miami Police Sergeant Vince Paulo was
holding his best friend's daughter, McKenna Mays, as she
was bleeding out and dying after a brutal assault. When
Vince asked who had attacked her, McKenna's final word
was "Jamal," her boyfriend. Within minutes of the
teenager's death, Vince triggered a bomb by chasing someone
leaving the house; Sergeant Paulo survived the blast that
left him blind. Miami attorney Jack Swyteck is doing pro bono work for his
old boss and dear friend, Neil Goderich, who heads the
Freedom Institute. Jack's client is from East Africa,
speaks no English, and is being held at Guantanamo, better
known as GITMO. In just a few hours Jack is to argue
before a Washington court for the release of this young
man. It took quite a while to break the ice with Prisoner
Number 977, who is allegedly a member of al-Qaeda, but when
the thaw began it was an amazing and unexpected revelation
to many people. Jack's fiancée, Andie Henning, is an undercover agent for
the FBI. Jack and Andie have a tacit agreement to not
meddle in each other's business life. Andie breaks that
rule by asking Jack to drop this pro bono case. Chuck Mays is a computer genius that owned a data-mining
company that he sold to a media conglomerate for multi-
millions of dollars, and then formed MLFC Inc. -- there are
two versions of what the initials stand for; the real one
can't be printed in this review. After his daughter's
death and his wife's apparent suicide, Chuck pours all of
his time and energy into his new venture, and it seems that
the only person he still trusts is Vince. The high tech
of MLFC Inc. is awesome and will help find the killer who
destroyed Vince's eyes and Chuck's life. AFRAID OF THE DARK is a mind boggling balance of abuse of
power and good versus evil. Peopled by three-dimensional
characters, and propelled by an unrelenting pace, this is
an extraordinary tale that never seems to find a stopping
place. Dark is not a place, but a person, and you would
be wise to be afraid...very afraid of him. All of the story
threads come together in an eye-opening and violent
climax. This is the author's ninth book featuring Jack,
and might possibly be his best legal thriller yet. Wow!
SUMMARY
The New York Times bestselling author's ever-popular
hero, Jack Swyteck, is on his most dangerous case yet,
uncovering a sinister underground world that has him racing
across the globe. Then: Sergeant Vince Paulo held his best friend's daughter,
McKenna, bleeding in his arms as she uttered the name of her
murderer and ex-boyfriend, Jamal. That was minutes before a
blast made everything go black for Vince—forever. Now: Miami criminal defense lawyer Jack Swyteck has been
called in to save Jamal from the death penalty for terrorist
activity. Despite urgent warnings from his fiancee,
undercover FBI agent Andie Henning, to stay away from the
case, Jack finds himself inextricably drawn to Jamal's
past—even believing his alibi that he was abducted and held
in a black site in Prague at the time of McKenna's death.
But if Jamal is innocent, then the man who murdered McKenna
and took Vince's sight is still out there . . . free. Soon bodies begin to pile up and ghosts from the past
reappear very much alive, confirmed by ominous threats from
a faceless man known only as "the Dark." Vince and Jack must
confront a mortal danger that goes beyond McKenna's death,
across international waters—a journey to piece together the
past that leads through the back alleys of London, onto
illegal Internet sites, and straight into the mind of pure
evil.
ExcerptKUTGW.Sergeant Vince Paulo stared at the text message on his smart
phone and didn’t have a clue. In many respects, Vince was at the top of his game. Good
looking and full of confidence, he’d come to the city of
Miami police force straight out of the marines after a tour
of duty in the Gulf War. He was born to be a cop, and a
college degree in psychology combined with his battle-tested
coolness under pressure made him a natural for crisis
management. Five years as lead negotiator had earned him the
reputation of a risk taker who didn’t always follow the
conventional wisdom of other trained negotiators. His
critics said that his unorthodox style would eventually
catch up with him. The prediction only made Vince bolder.
But this texting bullshit made him feel impotent. New
acronyms popped up every hour. The coffeehouse had free
Wi-Fi, so Vince put down his latte and Googled the
definition of “KUTGW.” Keep up the good work. Benign enough, especially from a sixteen-year- old girl. Intercepting text messages between teenagers wasn’t Vince’s
regular duty, but there was little he wouldn’t do for his
best friend, Chuck Mays. For years now, Chuck had partnered
with Vince on a number of high-tech law enforcement
projects. He was currently in Asia looking to outsource the
collection of personal information on millions of consumers
and globalize his company’s data mining services. His wife Shada and their daughter Mc‑Kenna had
stayed behind in Miami. It was an important trip, but Chuck
had almost canceled it. Shada was that concerned
about their daughter’s ex-boyfriend. It was while Vince was giving his friend a lift to the
airport that Chuck had flashed a deadly serious expression
and uttered the ominous words that Vince would never forget: “I don’t know the whole story, but I’m telling you, Vince:
Shada is convinced that the son of a bitch is going to hurt
McKenna if she doesn’t stay away from him.” As a cop, Vince had seen plenty of restraining orders
ignored, so he didn’t even suggest that the Mays family seek
one. McKenna wasn’t exactly cooperative anyway. She refused
to let her parents monitor her cell or computer, and to
Chuck’s dismay, her mother had sided with McKenna. Chuck was
standing on the curb outside the international terminal, two
hours away from boarding the Miami-London leg of his flight
to Mumbai, when he persuaded Vince that this was a potential
safety issue that transcended teen privacy concerns. But he
didn’t want “just anybody” looking over McKenna’s shoulder.
Chuck provided the spy software—rudimentary stuff for a
self-taught computer genius who was pioneering the personal
information business. Vince agreed to review McKenna’s text
messages from three p.m. to nine p.m. Eastern time, hours
that Chuck spent sleeping on the other side of the world.
Chuck would cover the rest of the day. Vince removed the plastic lid from his tall paper cup and
grimaced. More foam than fuel. That would teach him to order
something other than his usual straight cup of joe. No
wonder customers felt entitled to monopolize a table for
hours on end—just them, their laptops, and five-dollar cups
of no coffee. TFANC. Time for a new coffeehouse. Vince spooned away the foam as McKenna’s text messages
continued to load on his smart phone. The wireless transfer
from McKenna’s memory card to his occurred in seconds, no
way for McKenna to know what had hit her. Message after
message, line after line, nothing but teenage babble. Vince
was actually feeling pretty fortunate to be single. How do parents keep up with this insanity? Vince scrolled through McKenna’s messages, coffee in one
hand and his cell in the other. Reading this stuff was
downright painful. OMG. LOL. CU L8R. It was the endless
electronic version of Exhibit A in the case against the
existence of intelligent life on Earth. One last swig of
coffee—and then he froze. The most recent message hit him
like a 5 iron to the forehead. It was thirty-five minutes
old. McKenna had sent it to Jamal—the ex-boyfriend. FMLTWIA. It was alphabet soup to just about anyone who wasn’t in high
school, but Vince had seen the Miami Police Department’s
crib sheet on teenage sex and texting—“ sexting.” FMLTWIA
had stuck in his mind only because it was among the most
vulgar. He had known and loved McKenna since she was a ponytailed
little girl with half of her teeth missing, so it shocked
him that she would even know what it meant. The thought of
her actually sending such a message to her
ex—supposedly ex—boyfriend made him sick to his
stomach. Vince suddenly felt an avuncular need to intercede,
to step in where his friend Chuck would if he weren’t eight
thousand miles away. Vince dialed McKenna’s cell. There was no answer, but
Chuck’s spyware also had GPS tracking ability. A simple
punch of a button on Vince’s cell would reveal the exact
location of McKenna’s phone, which 99.9 percent of the time
meant the exact location of McKenna. It wasn’t something he
did lightly, but this kind of sexting wasn’t just the
high-tech version of the “truth or dare” games that kids
used to play when Vince was in school. The on-screen
coordinates told him that McKenna was at home. Vince dialed
the landline for the Mays residence. No answer, which didn’t
mean that McKenna wasn’t there—but it did mean that
McKenna’s mother wasn’t. McKenna was home alone. Alone with Jamal. FMLTWIA. Fuck Me Like the Whore I Am. Vince didn’t shock easily; and yes, it was a different world
now. But if Chuck was right—if seeing Jamal was playing with
fire—then this was gasoline. His hand was shaking as he
dialed McKenna’s mother on her cell. Shada didn’t answer. Now what?
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