#allthebookreviews – Path Into Darkness by Lisa Alber

Catching up on some more August titles!

Thanks to Midnight Ink for the copies in exchange for our honest reviews.

Squeezing in another #allthebookreviews August title to the list 🙂

PATH INTO DARKNESS by Lisa Alber (released the beginning of this month!)

Chandra’s Thoughts: 4/5 stars

So here’s the conundrum with reading series books out of order. You tend to miss out on certain backgrounds of characters and if these aren’t addressed in the book you’re reading (out of order), you feel a bit at a loss. However, if you are reading a series in order and the author spends too much time revisiting past circumstances then I get irritated. I don’t think I knew this was series book until I received it. Being number 3 in the County Clare Mystery series, there were definitely things I was missing from books 1 and 2 that would’ve been helpful going into this one. It CAN be read as a standalone, but I think it would resonate better had I had the other books knocked out.

Putting all that aside, this was a fantastic, atmospheric read. It starts out with the death of Elder Joe and Detective Danny Ahern is on the case. Of course, Danny has his own set of issues and with the upcoming matchmaking festival (can you imagine?!?!), he feel pressured to get this solved quickly. Nathan Tate and his daughter Zoe come into the scene and boy oh boy does Nathan have some interesting secrets of his own.

Alber does a great job in pulling all the nuances together. She builds Ireland’s atmosphere in such a way that you feel like you are there – extremely well written descriptions help you picture it all. I didn’t find many of the characters likable but in this case, I liked not liking them (get me?) Adding twists and turns at every corner, you’re in for a corkscrew of a ride.

My Thoughts: 4.5/5 stars

This atmospheric murder mystery thriller was an absorbing read. While Lisa Alber’s PATH INTO DARKNESS is book three in the County Clare series, you can read it as a standalone. I do want to go back and read books 1 and 2 simply because the development of some of the relationships is missing. So I did feel like I was missing some background information.

Taking place in Lisfenora, Ireland we start with the discovery of Elder Joe’s body in his cottage. Detective Sergeant Danny Ahern is assigned to the murder case, but he is dealing with his own demons that he’s trying to keep at bay. With the town’s annual matchmaking festival quickly approaching, the pressure is on to catch the killer. His investigation leads him to the Tate family. Nathan has his dark secrets within his secrets, so needless to say he’s troubled, and then there’s Zoe, the daughter he had abandoned years ago.

It amazed me how descriptive Alber was, without it feeling too wordy. Sometimes overly descriptive novels feel like they drag on and on. It felt like I was actually there in Lisfenora with the characters and experiencing everything with them. I will say that I’d recommend reading the first two novels. I’m definitely missing some background information and the development of the returning characters. So the transition into their current situations was a little lost on me (hence why I took off half a star).

There were twists and turns, and very disturbing secrets revealed about the residents in this quiet town. If you want an atmospheric murder mystery thriller with flawed characters, then I’d highly recommend this one to you!

 

I really hope that one day Netgalley will do what Goodreads does and state whether or not something is in a series. It would make that so much easier to avoid starting halfway through and not knowing it. That being said, a lot can be standalones.

–Jess