Some Choose Darkness

 Some Choose Darkness is the fifth Charlie Donlea novel I’ve read/listened to in a very short time span. His books are available on Libby and the wait for them has not been too long. He typically writes about psychologically damaged women, both the people hunting for clues about an old murder as well as those who have been the victims. The subtitle of the book is A Rory Moore/Lane Phillips Novel, Rory being the protagonist in this good story. She specializes in forensic reconstruction of cold cases, finding clues that others have missed.

 

In this story, her father was an attorney of a client he had taken on early in his career, a serial killer who was convicted and imprisoned for only one of the women he had been suspected of killing. Rory’s father, she discovered to her own horror, had continued his relationship with “The Thief” and had taken on responsibilities that were far beyond a typical attorney-client relationship, including managing his wealth and then paying himself for services rendered from that fund. Her father was terrified that although The Thief had never been paroled, he was coming to the end of his 30-year prison sentence and was about to be released. His anxiety increased until he had a heart attack and died.

 

Rory had graduated from law school and was listed as being on her father’s staff, she had never practiced law. Rather, she had quietly left that scene and limited her legal work to reconstructing crimes. However, as she studied the victims of old crimes, she became emotionally disturbed by the effort. At the start of this story, the emotionally fragile Rory had just returned from 6 months off work as the result of the trauma she felt by the nature of her work. She was not prepared to take on her father’s cases, and given the short timeline to the prisoner’s impending release, something her father had successfully stalled for some years, the judge would not allow Rory to refer the case to some other attorney.

 

The case that had led to this man’s incarceration had to do with the disappearance of Angela Mitchell, another presumed victim of this killer. It was Rory’s reconstruction of that crime that moved this story line along. Angela’s body had never been found, and Rory began to wonder if she might not still be alive.

 

I have been entertained by this series of books by Donlea, and I’m already nearing the end of another one of his books. You should expect that I’m giving this author a strong recommendation.