Book Review: Slipping into Darkness

Reviewed By: Catherine Thompson - RAM

Slipping into Darkness     Amazon US HC Amazon UK HC Amazon Canada HC
Peter Blauner
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Police Procedural
Little, Brown, $33.95 hardcover, 386 pages

Twenty years ago, Francis X. Loughlin made his first big case in Homicide and sent a 17-year-old boy down for 25-to-life. But now Julian Vega is out of prison on a technicality and trying his damnedest to prove that he didn’t murder Allison Wallis that night in 1983. Loughlin’s as certain now as he was then that Vega is the killer; with a second murder where the victim uncannily resembles Allison, he’s even more certain.

But the DNA test on blood found under Christine Rogers’s fingernails turns up a very different match than what Detective Loughlin expected. Not only is the blood not Vega’s, it matches samples taken at the original murder scene, blood identified then as Allison’s. And Allison’s mother has been saying for years that the wrong girl is buried in the grave with her daughter’s headstone over it.

Slipping Into Darkness is an outstanding novel, certainly one of the best I’ve read this year, perhaps in several years. Blauner digs deep into the souls of his two main characters: one a man nearing the end of his career, which may be cut short by the disease that is slowly taking his sight; the other a man who has known nothing but brutality and bars since before he was a man. Loughlin and Vega circle each other like wary boxers throughout the novel, which moves back and forth between their points of view.

Blauner handles his subjects deftly and with great care. He creates two worthy adversaries who are yet human and believable. I find it hard to believe I’ve not heard of him before this, though he’s published several books, including an Edgar winner.

Catherine Thompson - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Catherine Thompson - RAM