Customer Reviews

Places in the Dark (True First Edition)

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In the fall of 1937, a mysterious woman, Dora March, steps off the bus in the small seaside town of Port Alma, Maine and enters the lives of two brothers: Cal, who always leads with his head and William, who always leads with his heart. Though she stays in town only a year, her presence changes their lives forever, leaving one dead and the other almost crazy with guilt. Places in the Dark is a suspenseful, compelling page turner that keeps you off balance throughout the entire book. Everytime you think you have a handle on the plot and mystery, Thomas Cook turns you in a different direction, convincing you, you're mistaken and on the wrong track. Though there is not a spare word in this story, the real strength of this novel is the powerful, eloquent, vivid writing. Each character is beautifully drawn and developed and given a strong voice to move the story forward to its unexpected, climactic ending. Places in the Dark explores the tragedy of loss, guilt and betrayal and how easily love can both delight and destroy those we care about. One of the best new books this year, it's a story that shouldn't be missed.

This story is an ingenious trip through the lives, both past and present, of two brothers and a woman who is questionable in demeanor and deed. As the novel opens, the author allows us a glimpse at an appalling act of violence that the rest of his story is literally wrapped around. So cleverly written he drops bits and pieces along the way like so many petals from a flower. I will not give one inkling of the story away because it is to be prized as a whole, but I will say the ending was a total surprise.

While I love the intricacies of Cooks writing, his florid prose distinguishes him as more than your ordinary mystery writer. Not simply a who-dun-it, this book allows you to see evil from a completely different perspective. Cook is the author of 15 novels and can certainly count me among his many fans. Kelsana 6/05/01

Thomas Cook is unquestionably one of the best fiction writers since Agatha Christie. His prose is beautiful and compelling and his characters lives are believable. His plots are terse with minimal embellishment and no fluff to weaken the plot. He is one of the few modern fictional writers whose succeeding books never get stale or repetitive. Some of his paragraphs are written so beautifully that I have to reread them. "Places in the Dark" has a Maine coastal location that fits the plot beautifully and his small town characters remind those of us who grew up in small towns of people that we knew. Mr. Cook leaves no loose ends and I almost always finish his books in one days reading.

A mystery of psychological suspense, set in a small coastal Maine village in 1937, Edgar-award winner (for "the Chatham School Affair) Thomas H. Cook's "Places in the Dark" pits the stoic against the romantic and, between them, an enigmatic woman of mystery.

Cal Chase, the narrator, a pragmatic, unemotional lawyer, mourns his murdered younger brother, beloved, high-spirited Billy, and vows to track down the mysterious Dora March, the love of Billy's life, who disappeared right after the murder.

As Cal digs into the woman's past, he dredges up his own - the childhood he and Billy shared with parents whose temperaments were incomprehensible to each other and the more recent past, the days since the appearance of Dora. Billy's mother encouraged him to follow his heart, their father counseled Cal to adhere to the voice of reason.

As the story unfolds the reader realizes that both ideologies have left the boys too narrow to deal with the tangled forces of love. Cal's rigid, tortured voice serves to emphasize the passions building within him, building, inevitably as he see in hindsight, to tragedy. But there are more shocks in store for Cal, devastating realizations about life and character and crippling trauma.

A brooding excursion into the depths of the human heart, full of surprises and dread, with a stunning ending.

If you have never read a Thomas Cook novel, I guarantee that you will love this one. If you have, it's going to be just more of the same. Cook returns to the theme that seems to obsess him--that evil from the past will always return to impact upon the present.

In this outing, set in the Depression, a mysterious young woman alights from a bus in the small Maine town where brothers Cal and Billy live. Her name is Dora March (or is it?). She has beautiful green eyes and horrible scars on her back. The brothers who are completely opposite in personality (Cook beats us over the head making this point), fall hard for the lovely stranger. Cal keeps his infatuation from Billy, as he does not want to hurt him. Later Cal finds out Dora has feelings for him, but she refuses to act on them.

When Billy is murdered and Dora flees, Cal believes her to be responsible and, half mad, sets out on a cross country journey to find her. The only clue he has is a California address he found in a book she left behind.

Cook's writing is poetic and lyrical, sometimes self-consciously so, his characters, especially Cal and Billy's mother, are almost caricatures. They are assigned a trait and spend the rest of the book living up to it. There is a surprise twist at the end--again a staple in Cook's writing. If you are a first time reader it will all seem fresh and exciting. If you're not, it will just be an instant replay.

This was my first introduction to Thomas Cook and it will definitely not be my last. The book is centered around a mysterious woman, Dora March, who appears out of nowhere in a small town in New England, and dramatically affects the lives of two brothers that fall under her spell. One brother, the editor of the local newspaper, falls in love with her and hires her on at the paper after her rich, elderly employer dies. The older brother, a lawyer and the local prosecutor, is wary of the woman and his brothers relationship with her, and seeks to uncover the mysteries of her past. Before he can do so, the woman skips town in the wake of the apparent murder of the younger brother. The story is presented as a series of flashbacks that flesh out the interrelationships between the brothers and the young woman and casts light on the mysterious events that lead to the expiration ot the younger brother and a cast of other characters. Eventually the loose ends dovetail as the author masterfully, and cleverly, unveils the shocking denouement that had me in awe of his expert abilities. I'm not one that easily surprised and am usually quite wary of anytime I have to suspend disbelief, especially when the tables are turned in a thriller. Not so this book - it was so refreshing to have the rug masterfully, and expertly, pulled from beneath with nary a glass falling from the table. Excellent!

Let me start off by saying that I am not a reader of mysteries. When I picked up this book, I chose it because of the cover. Once I realized it was a mystery, I was so engrossed that I didnt' care. The characters in this books are so well-drawn and the story had be hooked within the first 25 pages.

In this book, Dora March gets off the train in Port Alma, Maine in 1937 and leaves the town forever changed by the time she disappears a year later. She gets a job watching over an elderly man who dies while in her care. She then gets a job working at the local newspaper where she meets and falls in love with the editor and brother of the main character Cal. Cal finds himself falling in love with Dora, and finally expresses it to her. Shortly thereafter, Billy is found dead and Cal is left desperately trying to find Dora, who he is convinced killed his brother.

This book goes back and forth from the past and back to the present. I could not put this book down once I picked it up because it was that good. This is a must-read!

Reading books is a wonderful and, at times, a boring process. It seems that one must read so many books that fail to move, that are well thought out, excellently written but at the last page you are left with perhaps a smile, ocassionaly a mild comment, "oh, that was a good book". But, just every so often one happens upon a book that reaches deep down beyond the surface of the maundane and leaves you with the feeling that the few hours you have just spent were some of the more meaningful hours of your life. That's what "Places in the Dark" has done for me.

Whats wonderful about the fiction of Thomas Cook is the coexistence of the unabashadly sentimental and romantic, with the restrained sensationalism of the grisly crimes that propel the story. This work, however could never be classified as Romantic Suspense.Cook is in a class by himself no matter how romantic (it is) or suspenseful(it is ) . Cook's elegaic language and his clear, sheer respect for his characters and their lives will leave you unashamedly weeping at its terrific conclusion.

This author is superb. I would call his books melodramas, as opposed to thrillers. They are passionate love/hate stories, with, yes, murder and mayhem, but they read like soap opera/potboilers. The thing is, there are so many soap opera/potboilers that are as boring as...well...soap, and his aren't. I loved this particular tortured tale except for one thing: the character of Billy seemed a bit lacking. He was too much "one-way," too "good" and actually a little dim, not just as a character but in personality as well. It's obviously a Cain and Able story (read: Cal and Bill). And Dora, the mystery woman, is well fleshed-out (for a mystery woman). But I couldn't care that much about Billy. He just - well - bored me. Also, the ending, while it came as something of a surprise, was something of a let-down. My thought was, "And so the point of all this was.....?????" Still, Cook is a masterful writer; vivid. For all the flaws, he's among our best popular novelists.