Daughter of Darkness

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Daughter of Darkness Daughter of Darkness

by Ed Gorman

Genre: Other12

Published: 1998

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    A gripping, psychological thriller in the best
tradition of film-noir…
    It began with the missing week of her life…
    Found in an alleyway, completely dazed, with no memory of
who she is, or how she's gotten there, an obviously well-to-do young woman is
taken to a nearby shelter run by a nun. There she meets former cop Michael
Coffey, who often stops in to visit Sister Mary Agnes. When it becomes obvious
that she is suffering from sudden, agonizing, recurring headaches, Coffey
volunteers to take her to the nearest ER. But, haunted by an elusive memory she
has of a motel, she insists that he drive her to the location first. There they
discover a brutally murdered man in the room, and blood-splattered clothing that
would certainly fit the young woman.
    Is she a cold-blooded killer, or has someone set her
up?
    Instead of turning her in to the police, Coffey takes his
mystery woman back to his house. And even when she disappears from there without
a word, he is positive she's innocent, and remains determined to help her. But
the truth which his investigation gradually reveals is so shocking that it will
be almost impossible to prove. For the real criminal is someone she trusts
implicitly, someone who is about to wreak the ultimate revenge-someone who has
tampered not only with the truth but with this innocent victim's very
mind!
    
***
    
    From Publishers Weekly
    A beautiful young woman is found unconscious in an alley,
with no memory of who she is or how she got there. When a mysterious impulse
leads her to a cheap motel room containing a corpse, all the evidence points to
her as the most likely suspect in the murder. The detective on the case, a
sensitive recovering alcoholic named Michael Coffey, falls in love with her and
sets out to prove her innocence, despite the evidence. The book bounces around
between Coffey's efforts to help the amnesiac (who turns out to be named Jenny)
and glimpses of a madman, Quinlan, living out his sexual fantasies by way of
drugs and hypnotism. Gorman (Guilty as Charged) keeps the pace swift and
navigates smoothly among the many subplots, but his characters, which he defines
mostly by comparing them to various movie and TV stars, fall flat. The author
drops one bombshell at the end, but-because he simply informs the reader flat
out rather than revealing the surprise dramatically-the bomb fails to explode,
and the novel's resolution collapses into melodrama.

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