The Dark Room [Hardcover]

Julia Cameron (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1998

Seeking to solve "the crime behind the crimes", Detective Mayo confronts his haunted past, his lover's terrible secret, and his own child's devastating fragility.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Bestselling author of The Artist's Way and The Vein of Gold, playwright and essayist Julia Cameron has turned her hand to penning thrillers, and this debut shows off her skill at plotting and characterization. Jack Nesbitt is a playboy photographer whose gruesome murder lifts the lid on the sleazy underworld of child pornography. Violet Winters, the cool beauty who was Nesbitt's longtime lover, looks like the prime suspect. But when Nesbitt's agent is killed, too, veteran Chicago homicide cop Elliott Mayo begins to wonder whether Violet, a pediatrician with a kinky past, is a killer or a potential victim. Complicating matters is Mayo's growing romantic interest in her; smitten as well as suspicious, he knows he's treading in dangerous waters. Then his own son is assaulted and his ex-wife's lover is killed in Mayo's apartment. Was it a message from Nesbitt's associates or a case of mistaken identity? The answer could be in Violet's past, or even in Mayo's. Cameron handles the near fatal attraction between them brilliantly, uncovering the darkness in both of their souls slowly and carefully without letting the reader's empathy and concern for them falter. A gripping tale, sure to propel the author into the front ranks of thriller writers. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

At first glance, Elliot Mayo, the protagonist of Cameron's uneven yet intriguing fiction debut, isn't the sort of character who might delve into The Artist's Way, the author's celebrated guide to tapping into one's unconscious creative powers. After 23 years on the Chicago police force, the brooding, Black Irish 47-year-old "homicide bull" has taught himself to shut down rather than to open up, screening out the bloody pictures that pop up unbidden in his brain. Life changes for Mayo, however, when the grisly murder and mutilation of photographer Jack Nesbitt becomes the first of a string of ritual killings that may have been committed by beautiful pediatrician Violet Winters, whom Mayo can't help loving. When those murders are revealed to be linked to the rape of the cop's nine-year-old son, Zachary, Mayo is forced to trust his intuition that Violet is innocent and the victim of a horrendous crime he left unsolved years ago. Progressing from trusting a hunch to seeking protection through prayer, Mayo evolves into a fascinating character, a tough cop confronting the reality of evilAand the sort of character Cameron's fans will appreciate. The novel's plot lacks true suspense: readers will guess the outcome far too soon, and be less than electrified by the murders as they occur. Still, the narrative generates moral heat, and the guarded yet spiritually adventurous Mayo stands as a compelling lead, making the book one that could appeal to Cameron's huge reader base, as well as to crime fiction fans in general. 50,000 first printing; author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 436 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub; 1st edition (November 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786705647
• ISBN-13: 978-0786705641
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #768,508 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Julia Cameron has been an active artist for more than thirty years. She is the author of twenty-eight books, fiction and nonfiction, including her bestselling works on the creative process: The Artist's Way, Walking in This World, Finding Water, and The Writing Diet. A novelist, playwright, songwriter, and poet, she has multiple credits in theater, film, and television.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Typical Hollywood hardboiler, May 3, 1999

By 

William E. Walker "Eric In Tx" (Arlington, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Dark Room (Hardcover)

Julia Cameron wants this book to be made into a screenplay so bad!! I can even see Bruce Willis in the leading role. Actually, it reads more like a screenplay that's been turned into a book.

This novel has every Hollywood-detective cliche: Irish cop in Chicago with marital problems; beautiful and sexy doctor who's also a suspect (and whom cop can't keep his mind off of); a suspicious partner who the cop hates; a sordid sex/Satanic cult that is linked to the cop and everyone he knows. And when the cult goes after the cops son (like you knew they would), things get really personal!

Another thing that bothered me: everyone, I mean everyone, knows everyone in this story and everything about them. From the doctor on the top of the social ladder to the scum at the bottom, they all know each other intimately. In a city the size of Chicago I find that hard to believe!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty darned ordinary, March 3, 1999

By 

Mary Jo Sherman - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dark Room (Hardcover)

I bought this book because Cameron's The Artist's Way changed my life majorly for the better--but I hope she sticks with non-fiction. I'm so disappointed--the effort in this one seems obvious. The word choice is repetitious--and half way through I found I didn't really care who the villain was. Maybe a super editor could have tightened it up a lot -- but that didn't happen.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars It doesn't work like that... at all., June 23, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Dark Room (Hardcover)

I don't know the author's nonfiction, but this book is laughable, in places reading more like a parody of New Age attitudes than a thriller.

First, the cliches just pile up. Tough-but-sensitive hero, tough-and-traumatized blonde "suspect", molested little son, the absurd "lookalike" plot device, the trendy cult/kiddie porn stuff. Then everybody is mysteriously connected with everything and everybody else - very small town, Chicago. The hero sleepwalks through this scenario, agonizing, studying his own inner life, depending on visions, hunches and mumbo-jumbo and usually doing nothing - this would be a much shorter book if he just did his job. The author's idea of police work is as hilarious as her "masculine" writing. And there is something quite unpleasant about those long, frequent, detailed, oh-so outraged descriptions of porn and kinkyness.