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DARK EYE
by William Bernhardt
Ballantine Books, January 2005
480 pages
$25.95
ISBN: 034547015X


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Susan Pulaski has finally hit rock bottom. Ever since the death of her husband, a fellow police officer, she has been going on a self-destructive drinking binge where someone finally got hurt during an alcoholic delusion. Now she is without a job, her home has been foreclosed, her niece has been placed in a foster home, and most importantly of all, she has lost her self-respect.

When a grisly murder is found at a Las Vegas theme hotel, she goes to her former boss as a last-ditch effort to make things right and is offered one last chance. There is a serial killer on the loose and they need all the help that they can get. She will work as a part-time consultant on the case. This is her last chance and she had better not blow it, but it will not be an easy road.

Bernhardt tells the story using three first-person points of view. First it is Susan, battling her alcoholic demons and losing the fight. She minces no words in telling what she thinks and makes no apologies to anyone. She does not have a problem and she will prove to everyone that she does not have a problem. But as the world continues to tumble around her you can't help wonder if she can continue.

The second point of view we get is from the killer himself who is targeting young women in order to fulfill his own agenda and lacks no resources. Each of his killings is an 'homage' to the poems and short stories of a well-known 19th-century American author and he takes his work seriously. He is vain, smart, narcissistic, and self-righteous. He is preparing for a Second Coming and his tributes are his offerings.

The third point of view comes from an unlikely source -- Darcy, the autistic son of the police chief. His encyclopedic memory for books will help Susan in ways that she has never imagined and provide a viewpoint for things other might have missed. Darcy's way of thinking is unusual as he is autistic not in the RAIN MAN sort of sense but autistic nevertheless where every paragraph is one long sentence with no breathing room as many things are happening inside Darcy's mind at once and the rules of punctuation does not apply due to the extreme stream of consciousness that the author puts in the book giving a unique insight inside the boys mind which is completely different to the way other people think and I think I have gone too far with this and I am going to stop right now.

Whew!

DARK EYE is a novel that relies heavily on gimmicks as well as gruesome scenes, something completely different from Bernhardt's courtroom dramas with Ben Kincaid. Still the novel moves at a rapid pace plus it is fun. This might not be the cup of tea for some readers but it is still an entertaining book. The killer is one of the most creative ones I have ever encountered.

Reviewed by Angel L. Soto, December 2004

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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