Risa Benson has done her best to move on in the 11 years since her husband vanished and her best friend was brutally murdered. Now married to Alan, an aspiring politician, she spends her time caring for him and her teenaged son, Kevin, as well as running her restaurant known as The Kitchen. Life is pretty good and normal for a small town. Kevin is the star football player for his school and it looks as if Alan is going to win his election. Yes, things are going along well.
Suddenly, all of that changes.
Risa's ex-husband, Sean, has spent the last 11 years in a drunken stupor barely knowing who he is most of the time. A near fatal accident changes everything as he finally starts getting the treatment and help he needs to become whole again. As his alcoholism comes under control, his memory starts to come back in bits and pieces. There are many things that Sean's forgotten through the years, but the one thing that keeps coming to him is the horrific vision of Carol Sleazak's butchered body and himself holding the machete that did the damage.
Sean knows that he's never going to get any peace in his life until he figures out if he was actually the person that killed Carol so many years ago. If he is, then he must speak up because another man has been in prison for the murder all this time, and Sean must make things right. So he boards a bus from the city and returns to the little town of Braden.
Never dreaming she would ever see Sean again, Risa has had him declared legally dead at the insistence of Alan. Now, he's suddenly reappeared in town claiming that he must have been the one that killed Carol and he wants to make things right by turning himself in. Risa starts to realize just how much she missed Sean, and now that he's more like the man she married, she wants to protect him and help him find the truth.
Alan wants nothing more than to get Sean out of town and out of their lives. Risa starts to see him as self-serving, only caring about himself and his political campaign. But there's something else more sinister lurking underneath and Risa is determined to find out what it is.
This is very absorbing novel, although it really kicks into high gear about halfway through. Once I hit the halfway mark, I literally carried this book with me everywhere I went because I just had to find out what happened next. The story has plenty of twists and turns and you won't know the truth until the last few pages when it all comes out. DARKNESS ALL AROUND is a perfect vacation/beach book!
When thereβs DARKNESS ALL AROUND . . . some memories are
best forgotten
Within the span of one harrowing week, Risaβs alcoholic
husband, Sean, disappears, and her best friend, Carol, is
brutally murdered. Eleven years later, Risa has seemingly
put her life back together again, comforted by the love of
her new husband, who is a local politician, and the
knowledge that Carolβs killer has been convicted. But then
just as suddenly as he disappeared, Sean resurfacesβ sober,
plagued by horrific recollections of Carolβs murder, and
convinced he was the real killer.
Seanβs startling claim buzzes through the small,
football-crazy Pennsylvania community, and Risa is left to
wonder if the man she still loves actually committed the
grisly murder. Her growing belief in his innocence sends her
on a treacherous search for the truth: a search that reveals
ugly secrets that her new husband and the townβs law
enforcement community are hiding.
Emboldened by her discoveries, Risa convinces Sean to flee
as the townβs violent forces move in to keep the truth from
coming to light. But Risa doesnβt realize that her attempts
to get vindication for Sean may come at a very high price.
Part murder mystery, part love story, Darkness All Around is
a gripping exploration of the depths of the criminal mind,
the fine line between the truth and a lie, and the bravery
of the human heart.
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