Customer Reviews

When the Dark Man Calls

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I first fell in love with this suspense novel many years ago in high school, and after re-reading my old copy after an absence of several years, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the book had lost little of its former impact. "When the Dark Man Calls" is a genuinely creepy - if somewhat routine - thriller. Successful radio psychologist (and single mom) Jean Kaiser and her daughter are stalked by a psychotic killer who calls in to her show and leaves clues to the murders he's committed. Jean must protect herself and her daughter, come to terms with her parents' murder as a child, and unmask a killer who is striking very close to home.

As all of Stuart Kaminsky's work, sadly under-valued and wonderful for its characterizations. This is a 2001 reissue of the original 1983 novel (also reissued in 1993). It marks the welcome of Detective Abe Lieberman, solo, though interestingly nothing in the cover or flyleaf notes gives an indication of this. It is closer to a genuine whodunit than he commonly writes, all of his series being about setting and participants more than final outcome. This is the first Kaminsky story that I can recall that focuses upon the victim and makes her the protagonist, supported by the investigators, police, outsiders. It may not have felt comfortable for the author, as across the variety of other series he has published and with which I am familiar, the structure does not reoccur. ..This guy has remarkable talent at engagement, and a facility with language which has caused me to re-read selections as I go; that may just be my dementia showing, yet I don't seem to do it with many novelists. Perhaps greater praise for Mr. Kaminsky should go toward the humor and the honor that he instills in almost all of his characters, including the supporting roles; and yet even with that I'm not doing right by him. It is noteworthy that on finishing reading about Abe Lieberman, or Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, or Toby Peters, or Lew Fonseca, I don't actually fantasize being any of them. They are far too clearly defined, they have too much tangibility to mold to my aspirations. But I dearly wish they were neighbors.