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jannenemarie's review against another edition
3.0
This book was okay. It was a little hard to get into at first as I tried a few times. It was the profanity that kept turning me off. Within the first few pages there was at least 5-6 swear words. There isn't a need for such foul language. I finally committed and forged on. I am glad that I did. It had an interesting plot and the characters were believable and you really wanted to be on their side. Hoping beyond hope that things would turn out okay.
It would be terrifying to me if I finally moved on after my husband is expected dead only to show up again. It would be like the rug being pulled out from under me.
It would be terrifying to me if I finally moved on after my husband is expected dead only to show up again. It would be like the rug being pulled out from under me.
drey72's review against another edition
4.0
Doug Magee’s Darkness All Around is an engrossing story about a small town whose inhabitants get more than they could ever imagine – and not in a good way – when a man returns from the dead to confess to a murder.
Risa loses her first husband to alcoholism. Her second is bent on winning political office. Her son is a high-school football star who may take too much enjoyment in hitting his opponents… She’s not happy, but goes along with the flow anyway. Then Sean comes back to town, convinced that he murdered her best friend all those years ago. She doesn’t believe him, but how do you argue with the memory of a reforming alcoholic?
So she does what she thinks is best – she gets the local reporter to investigate the murder. And in doing so, opens a whole can of worms…
This is a fabulous study of character, conviction, and desire; where greed doesn’t apply to material things, and psyches obscure the difference between wants and needs. The story is human, the plot well-formulated, and the villain unexpected. You’ll not regret picking this one up.
drey’s rating: Excellent!
Risa loses her first husband to alcoholism. Her second is bent on winning political office. Her son is a high-school football star who may take too much enjoyment in hitting his opponents… She’s not happy, but goes along with the flow anyway. Then Sean comes back to town, convinced that he murdered her best friend all those years ago. She doesn’t believe him, but how do you argue with the memory of a reforming alcoholic?
So she does what she thinks is best – she gets the local reporter to investigate the murder. And in doing so, opens a whole can of worms…
This is a fabulous study of character, conviction, and desire; where greed doesn’t apply to material things, and psyches obscure the difference between wants and needs. The story is human, the plot well-formulated, and the villain unexpected. You’ll not regret picking this one up.
drey’s rating: Excellent!
caitlinxmartin's review against another edition
3.0
Darkness All Around is a thriller with a literary bent, although in all honesty it reads more like a family drama to me than a crime thriller. Yes, there's plenty of violence and twists and turns, but at the end of the day this is really the story of one woman's journey back to a life she thought she had truly lost and it is this story that kept me hooked.
The premise is pretty typical for crime fiction: There was a murder. The wrong man was sent to prison. The initial reporter on the scene of the crime becomes a raging alcoholic, disappears, and is declared dead. His wife remarries an up and coming politician and has a different life than she planned. Her son has a different father than she had planned for, as well, and this has consequences. How could it not? X number of years later the original husband has an accident causing him to get both treatment for his alcoholism and for the brain injury he suffers. In the process of his brain recovering from all of this trauma, it keeps bringing up memories. He returns home to find out what happens, the chickens come home to roost in various ways, and the whole thing is wrapped up in a neat package.
Magee rises above the formulaic by writing interesting characters, spinning a good yarn, and making you care about the outcome. Although I thought the ending was predictable, I enjoyed the book. It kept me entertained on a long day of travel from Door County, WI (by car) to the Milwaukee Airport and a flight to Las Vegas, another flight to Oakland, CA, and a taxi ride home to Berkeley. I did run out of book (I often do in these situations), but I had my Kindle so that wasn't a disaster. Long story short this was a good fun read on a long boring day.
The premise is pretty typical for crime fiction: There was a murder. The wrong man was sent to prison. The initial reporter on the scene of the crime becomes a raging alcoholic, disappears, and is declared dead. His wife remarries an up and coming politician and has a different life than she planned. Her son has a different father than she had planned for, as well, and this has consequences. How could it not? X number of years later the original husband has an accident causing him to get both treatment for his alcoholism and for the brain injury he suffers. In the process of his brain recovering from all of this trauma, it keeps bringing up memories. He returns home to find out what happens, the chickens come home to roost in various ways, and the whole thing is wrapped up in a neat package.
Magee rises above the formulaic by writing interesting characters, spinning a good yarn, and making you care about the outcome. Although I thought the ending was predictable, I enjoyed the book. It kept me entertained on a long day of travel from Door County, WI (by car) to the Milwaukee Airport and a flight to Las Vegas, another flight to Oakland, CA, and a taxi ride home to Berkeley. I did run out of book (I often do in these situations), but I had my Kindle so that wasn't a disaster. Long story short this was a good fun read on a long boring day.
unabridgedchick's review
3.0
For a moment, I despaired ever really getting into this novel: the book opens with two brief chapters that were sort of vague, kind of flash back-y, and I felt my interest drifting before I could even figure out the story's hook. Then, thankfully, Magee zeroed in on his heroine and for me, the book got interesting.
While there's not a lot that's new in this book, what is offered is solid: the mystery is dark and twisted, the characters compellingly messed up, the tension creepy, and the setting claustrophobic. In a small, football-obsessed Pennsylvania town, Risa is married to a local politician, Alan, who is running for state office. Eleven years earlier, her alcoholic husband Sean disappeared and was eventually declared dead. Their son, Kevin, is the town's football star. One night, Sean returns to town, sobered up and recovering from a traumatic brain injury, and as his amnesia fades, he claims he remembers brutally murdering their friend. Understandably, Risa is kind of flipped.
I don't read a ton of these thrillers as I'm a big stress bucket and the anxiety of getting to the book's twist can render me a twitching idiot. However, Magee's book had a slow tension that I liked mixed with a kind of emotional exploration that really worked for me. Risa struggles not only with emotional impact of her declared-dead husband's return, but the potential of violence in the people she loves: her husband's addictive tendencies, her son's passion -- and skill -- at football, the implications of her current husband's involvement in the investigation of the murder and her ex-husband's past.
I'm totally over traumatic brain injuries as a plot device, and yet when it surfaced in this novel, it worked for -- and made for a rather compelling character. I'm not a football fan, either, but found the sports/violence angle interesting. (However, a character mentions in passing that Kevin might get some attention from Paterno at Penn State and the only reason I understood this reference was due to the abuse scandal.)
This was a perfect weekend read, easy for me to dip in and out of throughout the day. Creepy enough that I waved off friends to keep reading but effortless enough that I could get back into the story were my friends persistent and successful in pulling me away.
While there's not a lot that's new in this book, what is offered is solid: the mystery is dark and twisted, the characters compellingly messed up, the tension creepy, and the setting claustrophobic. In a small, football-obsessed Pennsylvania town, Risa is married to a local politician, Alan, who is running for state office. Eleven years earlier, her alcoholic husband Sean disappeared and was eventually declared dead. Their son, Kevin, is the town's football star. One night, Sean returns to town, sobered up and recovering from a traumatic brain injury, and as his amnesia fades, he claims he remembers brutally murdering their friend. Understandably, Risa is kind of flipped.
I don't read a ton of these thrillers as I'm a big stress bucket and the anxiety of getting to the book's twist can render me a twitching idiot. However, Magee's book had a slow tension that I liked mixed with a kind of emotional exploration that really worked for me. Risa struggles not only with emotional impact of her declared-dead husband's return, but the potential of violence in the people she loves: her husband's addictive tendencies, her son's passion -- and skill -- at football, the implications of her current husband's involvement in the investigation of the murder and her ex-husband's past.
I'm totally over traumatic brain injuries as a plot device, and yet when it surfaced in this novel, it worked for -- and made for a rather compelling character. I'm not a football fan, either, but found the sports/violence angle interesting. (However, a character mentions in passing that Kevin might get some attention from Paterno at Penn State and the only reason I understood this reference was due to the abuse scandal.)
This was a perfect weekend read, easy for me to dip in and out of throughout the day. Creepy enough that I waved off friends to keep reading but effortless enough that I could get back into the story were my friends persistent and successful in pulling me away.