BOOK REVIEW: Some Choose Darkness by Charlie Donlea @CharlieDonlea @KensingtonBooks #somechoosedarkness #bookreview

Charlie Donlea’s latest thriller Some Choose Darkness is the type of book that builds so much suspense, that I felt on the edge of my seat every page! This is a masterful book, weaving the past and present together in a way that enhanced the tension and left me unable to put the book down. Be warned—you will need to cancel all plans after you start this! Dark, twisty, and not to be missed!

About the Book

The truth is easy to miss, even when it’s right in front of us. As a forensic reconstructionist, Rory Moore sheds light on cold-case homicides by piecing together crime scene details others fail to see. Cleaning out her late father’s law office a week after his burial, she receives a call that plunges her into a decades-old case come to life once more. 

During the summer of 1979, women are disappearing in Chicago. The press nicknames the faceless predator The Thief, because he leaves nothing behind. No bodies, no clues, no suspects. Angela Mitchell is fixated on the disappearances. A high-functioning autistic woman with obsessive compulsive disorder, Angela often sees patterns that others do not. And Angela starts piecing together clues about The Thief with a shocking conclusion. Her biggest challenge is getting others to believe it, before it is too late.

In 2019, Rory Moore is asked to reconstruct a porcelain doll and a murder—both of which are areas she has unique expertise in. Rory works as a forensic reconstructionist, piecing crimes back together with a specialty for cold cases. When Rory’s father passes away unexpectedly, Rory finds herself in the middle of the case notes, trial, and conviction of The Thief from all of those years ago. Angela Mitchell’s evidence was enough to get the police to focus on The Thief, but before she could follow up with them, she disappeared herself. The last victim of The Thief that summer and the only one the prosecution was able to pin on him.

Now, The Thief is being paroled 20 years early, and Rory finds herself in the awkward position filling in as his attorney after her father’s sudden death. How is it possible Rory never knew about her father’s connection to this case? And what is tugging at Rory’s mind, prompting her to find the connection between the past and the present?

Reflection

The way Charlie Donlea used past, present, and different narrators to build suspense made each twist and reveal have a huge impact! The structure of this book and the writing were both executed so carefully—it really made this a stand out thriller for me, and one I won’t soon forget!

I really loved the way Angela and Rory’s unique personalities and shortcomings were often the very things that made them special. For Angela, autism and obsessive compulsive disorder hit at a time when neither were well-understood. Her treatment and diagnoses, as well as the way she is described during the trial, were a sad portrayal of how mental health—and particularly women’s mental health—were treated in the 1970s. We were on the cusp of understanding these disorders, but we also didn’t realize the strengths that come along with the challenges.

Angela is brilliant, but she is also obsessive, compulsive, and a bit “off” to most. She struggles with some aspects of social interaction, and she seems like she is unable to function. At the same time, Angela is able to piece together data in miraculous ways. The parallels to Rory were fascinating, because although Rory suffers from some of the same challenges, Rory has learned strong coping skills to manage her disease, and therefore she is much more accepted by those around her.

There were also the parallels between the murders in 1979 and the murder in 2019. Rory finds herself working on both, and she has trouble separating the two. Something is tugging at her, begging that she find the connection. Watching Rory unravel the cases was fascinating.

At the same time as all of this, we get these amazing insights into others. We hear from The Thief, and from Rory’s father at different times. We hear from Angela in 1979 before she disappeared, and discover how she put the clues together. And we hear from Rory in the present, struggling to see what her brain is trying to tell her about the cases.

I can’t say much more without spoiling anything, but this book has twists and reveals throughout and each one is a total bombshell. It is written so the reveal impacts multiple storylines at the same time, and that made the build up to each twist suspenseful and heart-pounding. I highly recommend this book!

Thank you to Kensington Books for my copy. Opinions are my own.