Into the Dark

LoveReading Says

This fabulous crime thriller is full, absolutely stuffed full to overflowing with intense, smart, powerful writing. A local family goes missing in suspicious circumstances, the police, their friends and neighbours rush to fill in the gaps of their disappearance in order to find them. The novel runs along different timelines, revealing stories from both before and after the Holden’s were found to be missing.

A number of different strands open up, running alongside each other, but in themselves independent. It feels as though there are enough stories here to fill several separate novels, yet it doesn’t ever feel cluttered. Fiona Cummins keeps the characters, time frames, and plot all spinning up in the air with aplomb, any that drop and smash open are done so deliberately and I found myself on tenterhooks, waiting for the next to fall.

The darkness grows, stealing across the pages, almost overwhelming in its intensity. The words crept into my thoughts, suggesting, encouraging suspicion and questions to grow and expand. Even though I had been led to expect some of the events taking place, I was still shocked when they did, and that is the skill of the writing here.

I found myself on that wonderful reading clifftop of suspense before falling out into the heart-stopping void, and so I’ve chosen Into the Dark as a Liz Pick of the Month. This breath-stealing novel offers dramatic, satisfying, pure reading pleasure, so we also declare it a LoveReading Star Book.

Reviewed by Liz Robinson
Liz has been an Editorial Expert writing reviews for LoveReading since 2014.
More reviews by Liz Robinson

About Into the Dark

Shortlisted for the Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year 2023Into the Dark is the gripping crime thriller from Fiona Cummins about revenge, greed, ambition and the true cost of friendship.'Complex. Inventive. Twisting. Unsettling' - Sarah Vaughan, bestselling author of Anatomy of a ScandalThe Place: Seawings, a beautiful art deco home overlooking the sweep of the bay in Midtown-on-Sea.The Crime: The gilded Holden family - Piper and Gray and their two teenage children - have vanished from the house without a trace.The Detective: DS Saul Anguish, brilliant but with a dark past, treads the narrow line between light and shade.One late autumn morning, Piper's best friend arrives at Seawings to discover an eerie scene - the radio is playing, phones are charging on the worktop, the cars are in the garage. But the house is deserted.In fifteen-year-old Riva Holden's bedroom, scrawled across the mirror in blood, are three words:MakeThemStop.What happens next?

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