Kelley Armstrong's CITY OF THE LOST was a book did not
really live up to my expectations. I hoped for a more
thrilling story. However, that didn't mean that I didn't
like the book, but after waiting a year to read it and
really looking forward to it, the book was a bit of a
letdown. A decent thriller, just not so engrossing as I had
expected it to be. Still, I wanted to read the follow-up, A
DARKNESS ABSOLUTE since the idea of the book, of a town
where you can hide away from your past, is such a marvellous
thing.
In A DARKNESS ABSOLUTE Casey Duncan and sheriff's deputy
Will Anders are out looking for a man who has been struck by
cabin-fever and disappeared into the forest surrounding
Rockton. But, they are caught in a blizzard and have to take
shelter in a cave. What they did not expect to find is a
woman, trapped in a hole in the cave. She's a former
resident of Rockton and everyone thinks she got lost and
died in the wild. Instead, a man kidnapped her and kept her
in the cage. It gets even worse, soon they find the bodies
of two more women who previously disappeared from the town
and were assumed dead. Is there a killer in the town or is
it someone out there in the woods, preying on the women in
the town?
I found the storyline in A DARKNESS ABSOLUTE to be better
than in the first book. For one thing, the mystery was so
much more intriguing and thrilling. Just the question about
the identity of the man who took the women that he could be
anyone made the book so thrilling to read. Is it someone in
the town, or one of the settlers that have left the town, or
even a hostile, someone that has gone feral? Casey, Will,
and Sheriff Eric Dalton have to figure this out before
someone else get taken or killed.
A DARKNESS ABSOLUTE is definitely my kind of book. I love
the mystery of the killer identity. That it was so hard to
figure it out. Sure I had my suspicions towards the person
in question, but to be honest, did I suspect quite a lot of
people throughout the book's progress. The story was
captivating and I can't wait for the next book to be released.
On a side note, I do think that one can read A DARKNESS
ABSOLUTE without having read the first book. Of course, you
miss the introductions to the characters and Rockton, but
enough is explained in this book that you will not feel lost
in the plot.
When experienced homicide detective Casey Duncan first moved
to the secret town of Rockton, she expected a safe haven for
people like her, people running from their past misdeeds and
past lives. She knew living in Rockton meant living
off-the-grid completely: no cell phones, no Internet, no
mail, very little electricity, and no way of getting in or
out without the town council’s approval. What she didn’t
expect is that Rockton comes with its own set of secrets and
dangers.
Now, in A Darkness Absolute, Casey and her fellow
Rockton sheriff’s deputy Will chase a cabin-fevered resident
into the woods, where they are stranded in a blizzard.
Taking shelter in a cave, they discover a former resident
who’s been held captive for over a year. When the bodies of
two other women turn up, Casey and her colleagues must find
out if it’s an outsider behind the killings or if the answer
is more complicated than that...before another victim goes
missing.
Casey Duncan returns in another heart-racing thriller from
#1 New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong.