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A review by usbsticky
The Dark Room by Jonathan Moore
5.0
Fantastic! This is possibly the best book I've read in 2016 and that's impressive considering how many good books I've read this year.
Synopsis: SFPD inspector exhumes coffin to find strange body, then is pulled from case to investigate blackmail of SF mayor.
I'm amazed that the author has only written 3 previous books because his writing is top notch. His writing is very smooth and easy to get into. I got into the story within the first few pages. There is only one protagonist (Gavin Cain, the SFPD inspector) and everyone else is a supporting character. That makes the plot line very easy to follow. The action is fast and there are no boring parts. His writing is also impressive in its brevity. He is able to describe action or a character in just a few words, there are no long boring sentences that are just written for the sake of poetic license or verbiage. He just knows what to say to make the character or action feel real.
And there is just enough development of the character to move the story along and not so much that you felt it was too much. This is exactly how I felt about the early Law and Order episodes from oh so long ago - the actors were as real as they needed to be in the show but it skipped their personal histories and what they did at home, etc.
The only extraneous subplot I felt was the romantic one. I don't know if this is a stand alone book or the romantic entanglement was a followup from a previous book. Either way, this was one part that I felt didn't need to be there.
The plot was very well designed. It was complex but not confusing. The beauty of the plot was in the unraveling at the end so you could marvel how it all finally fit together and explained everything.
So in summary you got a fast reading and engrossing mystery. The characters were well described and the plot was pleasing. The only letdown is that I won't be able to find a novel as good as this one for a while. I got this book free as a review copy. I'm definitely going to read this author's other books.
Synopsis: SFPD inspector exhumes coffin to find strange body, then is pulled from case to investigate blackmail of SF mayor.
I'm amazed that the author has only written 3 previous books because his writing is top notch. His writing is very smooth and easy to get into. I got into the story within the first few pages. There is only one protagonist (Gavin Cain, the SFPD inspector) and everyone else is a supporting character. That makes the plot line very easy to follow. The action is fast and there are no boring parts. His writing is also impressive in its brevity. He is able to describe action or a character in just a few words, there are no long boring sentences that are just written for the sake of poetic license or verbiage. He just knows what to say to make the character or action feel real.
And there is just enough development of the character to move the story along and not so much that you felt it was too much. This is exactly how I felt about the early Law and Order episodes from oh so long ago - the actors were as real as they needed to be in the show but it skipped their personal histories and what they did at home, etc.
The only extraneous subplot I felt was the romantic one. I don't know if this is a stand alone book or the romantic entanglement was a followup from a previous book. Either way, this was one part that I felt didn't need to be there.
The plot was very well designed. It was complex but not confusing. The beauty of the plot was in the unraveling at the end so you could marvel how it all finally fit together and explained everything.
So in summary you got a fast reading and engrossing mystery. The characters were well described and the plot was pleasing. The only letdown is that I won't be able to find a novel as good as this one for a while. I got this book free as a review copy. I'm definitely going to read this author's other books.