Review: A Darkness Absolute

A Darkness Absolute by Kelley Armstrong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Despite reading this series out of order (and remembering who the murderers are) this is a gripping series.

A brief recap. Casey Duncan is a former homicide detective. As a young woman she was brutally beaten and left for dead after her boyfriend tried dealing drugs on another dealer's turf. Later when she confronted him she accidentally killed him and covered up the crime. When her boyfriend's father seems to have tracked her down and has her current friend with benefits beaten up she decides to flee for a remote settlement in the Yukon called Rockton where people can hide off the grid with her best friend Diana. In the first book we find out that things were not what they seemed and Diana had conspired with her abusive ex-husband to embezzle from her employers and used Casey to get access to Rockton.

Now Casey is 'dating' the sheriff, a local called Eric Dalton but Rockton isn't just a refuge for those being stalked or threatened, it is also a place where white collar criminals can buy their freedom. All residents must stay five years and the life is hard, no internet, no entertainment, no cell phones and very little electricity. The town is run by a syndicate of investors called the Council, they are more concerned about a return on their investment than the safety of the residents. Some residents didn't like living in Rockton and moved away, they are the settlers, some have reverted to savage-like behaviour and are termed 'the hostiles'. To safeguard residents they are not allowed to leave Rockton's town limits alone.

When Eirc is away on business, the only person in Rockton allowed to leave, Casey and Will Anders, the deputy sheriff, are tracking a resident, Shawn Sutherland who has run away from Rockton three times. Whilst tracking Shawn a blizzard hits and while seeking shelter in nearby caves Casey and Will find another Rockton resident, Nicole Chavez, who disappeared over a year earlier, trapped in a hole where she had been kept, raped and abused by a shadowy man.

In search of clues as to the identity of Nicole's abductor Casey stumbles across the bodies of two other women who had disappeared from Rockton and were presumed dead. Now there is a serial abductor and murderer to catch. But is he a hostile? A settler? Or a resident of Rockton.

I don't really read thrillers any more because I find that in the search for a new and unusual murderer/ motive they have to think up ever more grotesque ways to torture their victims and they got too gruesome for me. And yet, Kelley Armstrong writes such great characters that I have been drawn in despite myself.

I was enthralled and at times confused as Casey considers and discards suspects, is the crime too well-planned and intelligent for one of the hostiles? What would be the motive? How would a settler know enough about Rockton to kidnap Nicole?

Then Nicole goes missing again, but this time is she bait to entice Casey to the murderer?

In a town where everyone has a secret identity, and people lie about their pasts and the reasons for living in Rockton can Casey and Eric uncover the real murderer?

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