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A Field of Darkness (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: cute story, Vomit Girl, Rose Girls, Long Island (more...)
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Read's impressive debut stars the unusual Madeline Dare, a jumble of contradictions who comes from an old-money Long Island family but is married to Dean, a railroad worker, in Syracuse, N.Y., which our heroine likens in a moment of exasperation to "some mental dust bowl." Dean's job requires frequent travel, while Madeline writes fluff features for the local newspaper. Nothing in her background prepares her for trying to solve the bizarre 20-year-old murder of two young women, a crime that her cousin, Lapthorne Townsend, might have been involved in. Read writes with verve and passion as Madeline sets out to clear her cousin's name, an effort that develops into a much larger, life-changing struggle. Some readers may find Madeline's volatile character less than credible, but the fine supporting cast—notably husband Dean and flaky, flamboyant friend Ellis—consistently delights. The author's sharp social commentary on everything from the idle rich to the environment adds to the pleasure. 5-city author tour. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist

*Starred Review* Every page is a pleasure in this mystery debut featuring barb-wielding, ex-debutante Madeline Dare. A newspaper reporter trapped among the white trash (or "garbage blanc") of Syracuse, New York, she becomes enmeshed in the 20-year-old unsolved murder of two young hippies. The case was dubbed "the Rose Girls," for the thorny crowns encircling the victims' heads. Madeline's preposterously preppy cousin, Lapthorne Townsend, is among the suspects; his army dog tags were found at the scene of the crime. But Madeline believes he's far too feckless to engage in foul play. Bent on exonerating him, she sets out to retrace the Rose Girls' final hours, reportedly spent in the company of two soldiers at the New York State Fair. Read's plot crackles and pops, but her characters steal the show. Among them: a shifty-eyed silhouettist, a lustful livestock auctioneer, and in-laws who make the cast of Deliverance seem urbane. Madeline's own parents are irrepressible, too. "Mealtime conversation," writes Read, "was like watching Fellini and Wodehouse drop acid." This is sure to be loved by fans of comic mysteries, but don't be surprised if Tom Wolfe readers are equally smitten by Read's venomously witty portrait of a fallen WASP. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Mysterious Press; First Edition edition (May 8, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 089296023X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0892960231
  • Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #600,744 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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More About the Author

Cornelia Read
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

› Visit Amazon's Cornelia Read Page
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cute story
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Vomit Girl, Rose Girls, Long Island, Centre Island, Green Street, Oyster Bay, Archie Sembles, Madeline Dare, Jesus Christ, New York State Fair, Camp Drum, Shirley Temple, Uncle Weasel, Ice Cunt, Izzy Fleischmann, John Deere, Lake Oncas, Ray Charles, Winslow Homer
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Customer Reviews

48 Reviews
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 (24)
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 (7)
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 (5)
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Average Customer Review
3.9 out of 5 stars (48 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
37 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Read has a winner here, June 7, 2006
By J. K. Kelley "literary mercenary" (Eastern WA, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Cornelia Read's debut novel tells of a cynical, hard-bitten woman as she takes an interest in the fates of two generation-old, brutal, unsolved murders. The story is well set, flows nicely and parcels out clues and red herrings at the right pace. And thank the gods she didn't try to run a couple dozen subplots--this is a focused story.

What I liked best, though, was Read's writing style. You know how sometimes there's an author whose turn of phrase you just like--who could make a grocery list interesting? That is what struck me here. They say that an author's work is to put into words what most need to say but lack the phrasing. At this art--and it is a rare one in an era of plodding writing--Read is simply outstanding, a tremendously incisive chooser of the right metaphor. I found myself most interested to see what she'd come up with next.

The other area that impressed me most was character development. The protagonist's oft-disappointed humanity breathes and has a pulse. Read juggles quite a few characters and does them well. Interestingly, if there was a single child in the book (save reminisces by adults), I don't remember him or her. I sense that this was deliberate but I haven't figured out why--could be anything from puckish playfulness to an atmosphere-setter. Could be the author, a mother of twins, had strong personal reservations about children in a setting where violent murders occur.

The mystery/crime novel folks will like Read, but her style and skill will reel in a much broader audience. Me, for example.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent debut novel, May 31, 2006
By Bookreporter.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews
A FIELD OF DARKNESS starts, quite literally, like a house afire. The house that catches on fire --- burned down for the insurance money --- is in Syracuse. So is heroine Madeline Dare, and the house may be in better shape. Madeline is 25, a refugee from the Old Money, Eastern Socially Attractive world of the Hamptons and the Great Camps of the Adirondacks. (Perhaps the most cutting insult Madeline gets in the course of the book is a reminder from a frosty relative that she won't be allowed to buy back her parents' share in the family campground.)

So instead of summers by the lake replete with Southside cocktails (gin, lemon and syrup with a mint garnish) and winters spent indoors contemplating Winslow Homer originals and the crimes of one's forefathers, Madeline ends up in upstate New York, working for the local paper, writing about "winter drinks," green bean casserole recipes, and the wonders of the midway at the 1988 New York State Fair. You hear about culture shock, as poor Madeline experiences cultural cardiac arrest.

But Madeline (who reminds us that Syracuse is in the top four in the country in Cool Whip consumption) is not the first of her tribe to make the trip upstate from the Hamptons; her cousin Lapthorne was there years before, as a soldier at Camp Drum in the late sixties. He was there, as it turns out, at the same time as the famous murder of the unnamed, enigmatic "Rose Girls," left stark and alone in a cornfield garlanded in red and white flowers. And it turns out that one of Madeline's rustic in-laws has found Lapthorne's dog tags while plowing that very field.

That's the mystery at the center of A FIELD OF DARKNESS, and it has a lot to recommend --- tragedy, beauty, the relentless passage of time, the complete lack of motive for the killings. Madeline, wisely, doesn't want any part of it. But her curiosity overcomes her (understandable) reluctance, and before too long she's poring over the old photographs of the crime scene in the newspaper morgue, interviewing witnesses and getting in over her head. In many ways, Madeline is the worst possible detective for this --- or any other --- case. She's nervous and depressive, with a knack for saying precisely the wrong thing to the wrong person. But her great gift is her undeniable talent for observation, which gets more acute when she's in a horrible environment or situation.

Of course, it's a talent that rightly belongs to author Cornelia Read, and in her first novel she shows herself to be a sharp, caustic observer of crime scenes and purely social disasters. Read has an unerring eye for the false and the ridiculous, and both the barrooms of upstate New York and the drawing rooms of Long Island make for rich, ripe targets. She switches between them with aplomb, capable of describing both Low Rent entertainments (where a character named "Vomit Girl" makes a memorable appearance) as well as those of High Society (one key character enters a scene aboard his yacht). In between, Read populates her tale with memorable, quirky supporting characters, including a frightened silhouette artist, a cattle auctioneer with a fortunetelling sideline, and Jerry Lee Lewis as his own bad self.

A FIELD OF DARKNESS is sheer joy, complete with cutting prose and gleefully off-kilter pop culture references. Read pulls off the difficult job of combining perfectly timed comic situations and observations with a murder mystery that's deeply weird and disturbing. She writes with assurance, flash, and more than her fair share of talent. Just like her book, Cornelia Read is starting out her career as a novelist like a house afire.

--- Reviewed by Curtis Edmonds, who writes the "Northbound" blog at [...].
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Meet Madeline Dare, June 1, 2006
A FIELD OF DARKNESS, a debut novel by Cornelia Read.

Madeline Dare, is the central character. The author has created a refreshingly, different fictional character. Madeline is employed as a food and drink columnist, in a small town newspaper. She is complex, streetwise, a closet debutante. She comes across as nervous, certainly not too refined and is blessed with a unique sense of humour and maybe slightly pessimistic. Much of this , I would assume would derive from the attitude of a certain branch of her own family! All of which enhances her personality. She lives in upstate New York. She does not particularly like the town in which she lives. This changes, when her often absent husband, Dean, is once again back in town!

The story starts, quite unobtrusively. The year is 1988. Syracuse. A pair of dog tags discovered in a field. Buried in the same place, where several years before, the bodies of two murdered girls were unearthed. The killer(s) were never found. The real shock for Madeline is seeing the name on the tags. The name of Lapthorne Townsend, her own second cousin and a great favourite of hers.

Madeline, against her own better judgement, and certainly those of her friends, decides to try and discover the truth. Her investigations lead her to her child-hood home where old family secrets are unlocked. She realises the full impact of proceeding with her quest, when another murder takes place. Increasingly, Maddie becomes concerned with her own safety.

As the events progress, we are introduced to other characters. Ellis is Madeline's best friend. Where Maddie has self doubts, would take time to second guess before actually committing herself, Ellis is completely different. Her maxim on life, is do it now. She very quickly, and with some pangs of jealousy from Maddie, falls for the handsome Lapthorne. Her work colleagues, Simon, Wilt and Ted (the boss from hell) offer little in the way of constructional help as Maddie struggles to come to terms with the way her investigation is progressing.

Cousin Binty. Discover her for yourself, if you will. But tread with care!.

Kenny, landlord of the Town's local drinking place, becomes something of a Father figure. Offering Maddie advice relating to the investigation, as well as concern for her immediate well-being.

Sufficient just to add, that the ending of the book is as exciting as it is suspenseful.

A FIELD OF DARKNESS, is an enjoyable, and entertaining read. It's real success lies in the writing. Hard to define exactly, but because of this the theme of the story seems completely fresh. The characters are vivid and there are some delightful one line phrases - quote, `Later that night I'd asked Kenny where he'd gone to college. His answer won my heart: "Vietnam. It was pass-fail."` There are also some well observed culture references.

All in all, it is a really good read. It's..... different. !
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars boooring......
This book is so boring that I had to put it down and away after having read one third of it - what a waste of time and money (I actually bought it)! Read more
Published 12 days ago by Karina Daszkowski

2.0 out of 5 stars Tries hard to impress, too clever for its own good.
Disappointing first novel by a clearly talented writer. While the story's premise (mixed-class marriage, murder-mystery) might have been interesting, the 'aren't I clever'... Read more
Published 2 months ago by cnomad

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast paced, funny and smart
This debut novel is really very good. THe story is set in both Syracuse New York and Oyster Bay New York. Read more
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3.0 out of 5 stars Smart Stylish Mystery
Cornelia Read is a talented author with a knack for a clever turn of phrase. Her metaphors are dead on right. Read more
Published 14 months ago by voracious reader

2.0 out of 5 stars Cornelia Read's A Field of Darkness
Madeline Dare, the first-person narrator in Cornelia Read's A Field of Darkness, experiences terror and entrapment in her attempt to solve the murder of two young women, nineteen... Read more
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5.0 out of 5 stars A Different Sort of Mystery
I can't add a lot to the other positive comments here. I loved this book for a lot of reasons. I stayed up way too late reading it in two sittings. Read more
Published 16 months ago by AS King

2.0 out of 5 stars "Unique voice" or self-indulgent metaphor hound?
I've seen all the glowing reviews for this book, and to be honest I'm pretty baffled. The "unique voice" I keep hearing about seemed to me to be forced and stilted and overrun... Read more
Published 17 months ago by dc2nyc

2.0 out of 5 stars Her second book is better
I read this book after having read her second novel, "Crazy School." I thought Crazy School was a great book, so I had high expectations for her first novel. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Under the Table and Reading

5.0 out of 5 stars A delightful new voice
Couldn't put it down. And that's saying a lot, because lately I've found myself too distracted by other things to get into most of the books I've picked up. Read more
Published 19 months ago by shereads

5.0 out of 5 stars a cheeky, thrilling ride
Cornelia Read writes with a brash deftness that yanks the reader right into her story. Her heroine is a character anyone would want to get to know--and spend time with long after... Read more
Published 19 months ago by jenny milchman

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