Darkness Falls - Softcover

Murphy, Margaret

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0843956496 ISBN 13: 9780843956498

Publisher: Leisure Books, 2006

Synopsis

A devoted mother and high-powered attorney, Clara Pascal is the envy of her peers, until she is kidnapped by an unknown assailant who has left her chained to a stone wall in a cold, dark cellar, the prisoner of a man who refuses to even tell her what he wants. Reprint.

About this title

About the Author:

Margaret Murphy is the author of five novels, all concerned with the psychology of both the violent criminal and the victim of crime. Her first, Goodnight My Angel, was shortlisted for the First Blood award for debut crime novels, and her fourth, Past reason, has been optioned for television. A graduate in environmental biology, in 1998 she went back to university to gain an MA in writing. She is now studying psychology at the University of Liverpool. She has been a countryside ranger, biology teacher, dyslexia tutor and creative writing teacher. She lives on the Wirral.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* This stunning British suspense story will keep readers edgy and guessing until the very end. It opens with a cheerfully frantic domestic scene of Clara Pascal-- prosecuting counsel, wife, mother, and seemingly typical thirtysomething career-home juggler--trying to get to chambers on time while answering the demands of her daughter, excited and clingy on her ninth birthday. Two chapters later, Counsel Pascal is chained to a wall in a stranger's pitch-dark cellar. She is anything but a passive victim, however, as she uses her formidable argumentation skills to keep herself alive. Murphy ably spins several plot lines and points of view: Pascal's increasingly hopeless ordeal, the Chester Constabulary's efforts to find her, the musings of a serial killer. Everything hinges on motive. Was Pascal a random victim, or did her current case, the prosecution of a drug overlord, make her a target? Or is there something disjointed in her seemingly serene home life? Murphy's descriptions of the police procedure involved in recovering kidnap victims are sharply rendered, and her depiction of Pascal's courage is psychologically acute and moving. Perhaps the best feature of the novel, though, is the way tension is heightened through the juxtaposition of scenes. By setting the gut-wrenching events in the cellar against the painstaking detail gathering of the investigation--door-to-door inquiry, strategizing in the Incident Room--Murphy makes the reader squirm with impatience, willing the narrative forward. A first-rate chiller. Connie Fletcher
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About this edition

• Publisher: Leisure Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0843956496
• ISBN 13: 9780843956498
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 374