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Fiction. Mystery. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:The New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Lies and Fragile returns to The Hollows, delivering a thriller that explores matters of faith, memory, and sacrifice. After giving up his post at the Hollows Police Department, Jones Cooper is at loose ends. He is having trouble facing a horrible event from his past and finding a second act. He�??s in therapy. Then, on a brisk October morning, he has a visitor. Eloise Montgomery, the psychic who plays a key role in Fragile, comes to him with predictions about his future, some of them dire. Michael Holt, a young man who grew up in The Hollows, has returned looking for answers about his mother, who went missing many years earlier. He has hired local PI Ray Muldune and psychic Eloise Montgomery to help him solve the mystery that has haunted him. What he finds might be his undoing. Fifteen-year-old Willow Graves is exiled to The Hollows from Manhattan when six months earlier she moved to the quiet town with her novelist mother after a bitter divorce. Willow is acting out, spending time with kids that bring out the worst in her. And when things get hard, she has a tendency to run away�??a predilection that might lead her to dark places. Set in The Hollows, the backdrop for Fragile, this is the riveting story of lives set on a collision course with devastating consequences. The result is Lisa Unger�??s most compelling fiction… (more)
User reviews
create characters that you care about. They are real and compelling and
well rounded. May authors can create a good story, which Unger does as well,
but not all of them can give us good characters.
This is a story that takes place
knows everyone else as well as their family histories. An author, Bethany Graves,
moves to town with her young daughter Willow. Willow is a young girl with a troubled
past. Her father died when she was small, and the man she had come to love like a father
left both Willow and her mother, moving on to another woman. He never really looked back.
Eloise is a psychic who came into her abilities after a disastrous car crash that killed
one of her daughters as well as her husband. After coming out of a coma that she suffered
in the accident, she came to realize that she had been left with this gift. Eloise plays
an important and intriguing part in this story.
This is a mystery that is just dark enough, just hopeful enough and just chilling enough.
Nothing is over done. Once again I found myself enjoying a book by this author. It is a lightweight,
but an enjoyable one.
Darkness, My Old Friend is Lisa Unger’s latest thriller and a follow up to her last novel, Fragile. Unger assumes some knowledge of her characters, so if you are like me and have not read the prequel to Darkness, My Old Friend, it takes a few pages to be brought up to speed. Even still, I found myself quickly drawn into the lives of the characters. Jones Cooper is clearly the primary character around whom the plot turns. Struggling with his marriage and not sure what to do with his life, he becomes embroiled in the town’s most talked about mystery – that of the disappearance of Marla Holt. Tough, smart and skeptical of anything that cannot be proved, Jones is a likable character. The other characters are carefully fleshed out as Unger writes from multiple points of view in order to reveal their histories and motivations.
I enjoyed Unger’s writing style which reminded me of some of Laura Lippman’s later novels. The plot is drawn from the complexities of the characters’ lives and is actually not really much of a whodunnit (I figured out the “mystery” long before I got to the end of the book) – but, more of an exploration into motivation and the dark side of human nature. Thematically, Unger explores the mother-child relationship, self image, and identity. All the characters are faced with re-examining their pasts in order to find a balance between personal fulfillment and obligation.
Strengths of the novel include sharp dialogue, believable characters and an interesting psychological study of human behavior. If there is a weakness in the book it is a tendency to wrap the plot up a little too neatly.
Overall, a good read which will appeal to those who enjoy psychological thrillers.
Recommended.
Jones Cooper, a former detective in the town of
He is visited one day by Eloise - the psychic from Fragile. She has come to tell him she has seen a vision of Jones - diving in the river after someone and that it would be too much for him. Eloise works with local PI Ray Muldane as well. Muldane has been hired by Michael Holt. Michael was born in The Hollows and has recently moved back after the death of his father. His mother had disappeared when he was young. Bethany Graves and her daughter Willow have just moved to The Hollows to help Willow start fresh. One of Willow's first encounters in The Hollows? Michael - in the woods - digging...
" She thought him the dutiful son, sitting at his father's deathbed. But he wasn't that. He was a grave robber, waiting for the night watchman to drift off once and for all. Then, and only then, could he dig his fingers into the earth and exhume the truth."
At the end of Fragile, I thought there were more stories to be told with these characters and I was right. Jones Cooper is a great protagonist, conflicted with his past and what his role should be now. His wife Maggie, a psychologist in town, still has not won me over, but her clinical take on events and emotions provide a needed element. Eloise is explored more fully in this book, letting us know her back story. I appreciated this 'fleshing out' as she is the character I enjoy the most, besides Jones. There are many other players, all with their own stories.
There is a secondary plot line that eventually intersected with the primary case Jones is working on. I was able to foresee what was coming and the outcome of the mystery fairly easily. But, the real strength of Unger's writing seems to be the exploration of relationships, problems and emotions of her characters. Unger skillfully weaves together all the threads she's created into one compelling read.
"If you're looking, you can find trouble anywhere. It's waiting - not just on city street corners, in subways, in nightclubs, but on quiet country roads, in a peaceful stand of trees."
Those looking for a hardcore murder mystery won't find it here. But if you enjoy a good story, this one's for you.
This book has several different plotlines running at once, with tenuous threads holding all of the characters and subplots together. Because of this, and possibly because I had not read the first book, I didn't feel a strong connection to any specific characters. The suspense aspect was more psychological than mystery, which requires a better understanding of the characters' background than Unger offered.
Overall, this is a good read that could be made much better by clarifying the background stories. I highly suggest reading Fragile first.
The mystery revolves around Michael Holt and the disappearance of his mother, many years before. I'm afraid that I never really bonded with Michael and while mildly interested in his mother's disappearance, it didn't grip me as much as I hoped.
I do like Lisa's writing. It's clean and not overwrought (so many books use very overwrought prose these days) which I appreciated. The second half of the book does pick up the pace, though and it keeps you enthralled, making you want to buy the next one. Which is a good thing. It's just that I kept remembering the first half, which didn't work all that well for me as a reader.
The one thing that really stands out to me about the first half is that it seemed more like it was going to be a more literary novel about a group of different characters, what their lives were like, and how they viewed the world around them. NOrmally, this would make you sink into the various characters, but as I mentioned, the only one I truly bonded with was Willow. The others felt more like casual acquaintances.
For readers who enjoy character studies with a bit of a mystery thrown in, this may be just the book for you!
Readers first met Jones Cooper in Lisa Unger’s previous “Hollows” novel, Fragile. He was the police officer married to that novel’s protagonist, who resigned in disgrace over deeds from his past. When I reviewed Fragile, I had
As the novel opens, this man, still in the prime of his life, is at loose ends. He’s puttering around the house and seeing a therapist—mostly to appease his therapist wife. When he runs out of things to fix around his home, he starts doing odd jobs for friends and neighbors, just to keep occupied. However, it isn’t a handyman’s job that psychic Eloise Montgomery warns him about. No, former cop that he is, Jones has been lured into a mystery. A woman’s seemingly simple request for help locating her husband’s ex-wife spiderwebs in directions that will touch many lives and will put Jones in direct jeopardy.
There are many other characters involved in what is a fairly complex plot. This is one of those novels where you see the ends of the different threads, you just can’t figure out how they’ll all fit together. But Unger does an excellent job creating suspense and intrigue as her plot unravels. Additionally, readers are getting to know the denizens of The Hollows better. They’re in intriguing bunch. They seem to keep a lot of secrets, and I suspect the Ms. Unger is going to unearth a few more in the next few years. The first two “Hollows” novels are essentially stand alones, but the recurring characters and shared universe of these books makes the Hollows a place I will look forward to hopefully visiting again soon.
Darkness, My
While I thought that the story itself was interesting and enjoyable, the way it is written bothered me. I thought that it was trying to hard to be literary. Because of this, the pacing seemed off, and I was annoyed at some parts because I wanted to get into the story and the mystery instead of reading about the characters' "deep" thoughts on life and love. Despite that, however, I thought it was a good read and would recommend you to give it a try.
I really like Lisa Unger's earlier, "Beautiful Lies", but with "Darkness, My Old Friend", I believe the author has achieved a new level of maturity and success.
A lot of that has to do with the characters and their interwoven lives. The Hollows (a model on Sleepy Hollow, also found in upstate New York?) has a vibe all its own. Sinister, but open. Everyone knows everyone and there’s history, backstory and baggage galore. It’s a wonder there aren’t more murders. The problem is that sometimes the detail surrounding the characters gets to be a bit much. Like in Darkness, Maggie comes off like a controlling jerk, constantly pouting, sighing and frowning in her disapproval of the way Jones is dealing with his trauma and loss of his job. Oy it got old. Sure, there’s underlying love and devotion and I don’t want to see all sunshine and rainbows, but she got really annoying in this book. She was only mildly annoying in the first (she’s pretty judgmental, yet self-centered and always questioning her own motives and actions).
Also the central mystery of what happened to Marla Holt wasn’t too hard to figure out. I had it pegged early and had to watch the rag-tag investigators play catch-up. There are some decent tangential plots and most of the threads come together in the end. At first you don’t see quite how, but as the books progress they do and it’s fun to watch. In the second one the young people in the book seemed to be illustrating a minor theme about lying, which I could totally relate to. I was a bit of a compulsive liar when I was a kid and into my teens. Low self-esteem seems to be at the root of it. I didn’t really dare to do much and so had to lie about myself to make other people think I was worthwhile. Willow and Cole fall into the same trap. It was believable and I felt Willow’s struggle to stop. The writing is basically strong and there are some nice devices to throw suspicion and illustrate emotional concepts. I especially liked the worm metaphor to illustrate Eloise’s anger, frustration and hatred. I suppose in future installments we might see some progress between her and her estranged daughter, Amanda. Ditto with Jones and how he handles his reluctant new career. He’s kind of a bozo though, so I expect he’ll still have a lower emotional IQ than his kid’s.
As Jones finds himself becoming the “go-to” person for folks in the neighborhood in need of a pet sitter or a mail gatherer or whatever, Willow Graves is finding it difficult to settle into her new home in The Hollow where her mother has moved them following the mother’s divorce. Several mysteries are affecting the teens in The Hollows: Cole wants to find his mother; Willow wonders what the man she saw in the woods was actually digging up. At the same time, Michael Holt is searching for his mother, Paula Carr is dealing with an abusive relationship, and Eloise is issuing dire predictions.
Readers will find the strong atmospheric elements and the twisting plot are enough to keep the pages turning until the final reveal.
Recommended.
Family drama, mystery and intrigue, supernatural going-ons and more.
I quite enjoyed this book and received this for an early review, so I don't have the knowledge of Jones Cooper from book one, but will be on the lookout for the first book and more.
It kept my interest to the
3.5 stars
Jones Cooper is now retired, but it’s not going well. He’s looking for a purpose, while his wife insists he continue seeing his therapist. An opportunity presents itself when a renowned psychic approaches him with a dire
I have noticed while culling through my TBR list this past year, and now looking through the hundreds of books on my Kindle, that I tend to hoard books by specific authors. I’m not sure why I do that, but I know I love their work and will want to read anything they write. Maybe I want to store them up for a rainy day or want to have a good selection to choose from and never have to wait for their next book to come out. I don’t know- but Lisa Unger is one of those authors. This book has been sitting around on my Kindle for a good long while and really took me back to Hollows- a place I got familiar with back when I first discovered this author. This story took me a while to get into as I was unsure how the various seemingly disconnected threads were going to merge.
I suspected the outcome early on but liked the way all was revealed and the positive way the story ends for our hero.
I can’t say this was one of my favorites by this author, but I still enjoyed it and am glad I’m making time to work her through some of her backlisted titles.
3.5 stars