Shadows of Darkness by David S. FisherMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
For me this was a “cosy murder mystery” but set in Italy instead of an English village. It had a reasonably intriguing beginning, which, fairly obviously after a few pages, sets up lawyer Nico Moretti as being falsely implicated in a murder. The plot wends its way rather laboriously through its many twists and turns, and credit where it’s due, with lots of surprising conversations that give the main characters credible identities. I enjoyed the conversations between Nico and Mario or Olivera which were believable and exciting. Situations and scenarios, such as driving at speeds through the busy roads of Italian towns, are well described and added to the tension.
Unfortunately, the tale is told in the first person right up until the epilogue and the finale. They are narrated in the third person, when the author adopts a more documentary type of style for the finale, but the epilogue felt like a quite different book. Although I do not like novels in the first person it generally worked quite well here, adding well to the intriguing confusion of the plot. However, the last two chapters (epilogue and finale) felt rushed and trite in an attempt to explain the brilliantly surprising denouement, which spoilt the book for me. There were so many editing errors throughout the book that I was tempted to stop counting because it took my attention away from the unfolding mystery. There is a definite winning thriller here when the errors are removed and the ending is tightened up – at least for this fan of the genre.
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