A few months ago I went into the Partners & Crime Bookstore in Greenwich Village (www.crimepays.com). I had a few minutes before an appointment and I am always looking for new and great mysteries to read. The clerk suggested I try a Rennie Airth mystery and handed me River of Darkness. I had never heard of Airth but a police procedural set in England between the wars was definitely my cup of tea. I bought the book, put it in my bag, and forgot about it until last week, when I found the bag and the book.
Yesterday I settled down expecting a good read (Partners & Crime staff know their mysteries) and I was not disappointed. River of Darkness was a great read. This gripping novel had everything I needed to be enthralled from beginning to end: a well-set historical context, edge of the seat plot with enough twists, close calls, near misses, and danger to keep me panting to the finish, a very evil bad guy, vulnerable potential victims, a strong and well-developed male lead and a wonderful female lead, plus a great ending with all the ends tied up to make a not necessarily pretty package but a very satisfying package. When I finished reading this book I sat back, sighed, and just luxuriated in the feeling of a job well-done, all for my joy and benefit. Thank you Rennie Airth, thank you Partners & Crime, and thank you to my family for leaving me alone on a Sunday afternoon to read this wonderful book.
The novel introduces Scotland Yard Inspector John Madden, set on a case of an entire family slaughtered in their home in the quiet countryside. Clues begin to add up pointing to an ex-soldier well-trained in bayonet use, dug-out building and survival, having been involved. But why? Madden, an ex-soldier himself trying to forget his experiences in the War, has to confront his own ghosts to follow up the case but everyone in England at that time lived with ghosts: every family lost at least one member to the Great War and those that returned, returned with stories of horror and misery and hell. Airth begins the novel with an excerpt from a poem by Siegfried Sassoon, English poet of the Great War and a character from Part Barker’s brilliantly-written Regeneration trilogy about the war:
I’m back again from hell
With loathsome thoughts to sell;
Secrets of death to tell;
And horrors from the abyss.
Madden’s job is to prevent more horrors, and to do this, he must travel back to before the war to uncover a childhood trauma, and even farther, into the deepest recesses of the mind of an obsessed murderer. Madden has to go into the abyss and try, somehow, to make it out again. His investigation is a journey of horrors and self-discovery and, eventually salvation, but how many victims will perish before the end? River of Darkness will hold you on the edge of your seat waiting for the answer.
