Book Review - A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read

Synopsis:  Madeline Dare would be the first to tell you her money is so old there's none left. A former socialite from an aristocratic family in decline, Maddie is a tough-talking, would-be journalist exiled to the rust belt of upstate New York. Her prospects for changing her dreary lifestyle seem dim--until a set of dog tags found at a decades-old murder site is linked to her family. Shocked into action, Maddie embarks on a search that takes her from the derelict smokestacks of Syracuse to the posh mansions of Long Island's Gold Coast. But instead of the warm refuge of home, this prodigal daughter soon uncovers dark, sinister secrets that will violently challenge everything she believes in and holds dear.

First Line:  "There are people who can be happy anywhere.  I am not one of them."

Random Quote:  "I cleared the table, and he went to work at our big desk in the front room, X-Acto-blading up more minuscule pieces of balsa wood wit Teutonic precision and gluing them to odd shapes of cardboard.  If I'd tried anything like that, I would have ended up wearing it all in my hair for the next week, but I knew he'd  happily putter with it for hours, and that he should be allowed to try out his theory in peace, his last night before he was back in the crew car."

Review:  Cornelia Read is a recent discovery of mine. I picked up her third book, Invisible Boy, loved it, and was stoked to discover that it was part of a series and there were two more - A Field of Darkness is the first.

Syracuse City Hall - Image via Wikipedia

Read's heroine, Madeline Dare, is smart and cynical and sassy. I said in my review of Invisible Boy that she reminded me a bit of Nora Charles from The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett, played in the excellent 1930's-era movies by William Powell and Myrna Loy. Nora Charles was based on Lillian Hellman and, while Madeline doesn't have the sophistication of Nora, she does have the grit and sass - I bet she'll grow up to be Nora.

These books are set in the late eighties and I suppose I also like them because I am the same age as Madeline so her experiences and milieu feel really familiar to me. In this book she is stuck in Syracuse, working for a weekly newspaper, and hating every second of it. When she discovers evidence from a murder of two young women attending the state fair in the late sixties with a possible connection to her family she's off and running.

Ms. Read plots well and writes well and in Madeline Dare has created a character who has a genuine voice. I especially like that I don't always like Madeline - sometimes she's just too whiny for words - sounds odd, but sometimes we don't like people we care about. Even though she is often whiny and overly dramatic about her situation in this book, it reads in a very real manner. I remember what it's like to have finished college with tons of expectations and then to be clobbered over the head with that whole reality thing. Suddenly you're working a boring job in a place you don't like and it's all kind of gray and disappointing and it makes you really whiny because in your twenties you don't know that this stuff can ever change.

I really enjoyed this book and look forward to her fourth one.

Reading Challenges:  2010 100+ Reading Challenge, 2010 Support Your Local Library Reading Challenge