Hello, Darkness

Shes going to die in three days, Paris. Im going to kill her, and her death will be on your conscious.

Paris Gibson had a very different life before she moved to Austin, one that has changed her irreparably. Now she wears sunglasses all the time, and hosts a late night radio show where she plays classic love songs and acts as a friend to the people who call in. Sometimes she just listens, congratulating them, sympathizing with them, and sometimes she gives advice. Valentino, a man who calls in occasionally and is instantly recognizable with his husky voice, is one of those she gives advice to. Shes told him...as shes told everyone...that respect is important. One night she tells a young woman, who is in a restrictive, possessive relationship to, basically, dump the man shes with...this girl turns out to be Valentinos girlfriend. Hes kidnapped her, and now hes calling Paris to tell her something else...that in three days hell kill his girlfriend. After that, hes going to kill her. The search for the young woman before time is up brings Paris face to face with one of the men of her past, crime psychologist Dean Malloy.

The way this story is told is cool. Right away you meet Paris, which sets up the premise. Then you meet Dean...a father of a 16-year-old kid named Gavin, a man who is in a sad relationship of his own. Liz holds on tenaciously, while Dean feels guilty and smothered. Then you go on to the kidnapped girls parents, who have no idea that shes gone, and then you visit a wife who is angered and depressed by her husbands ways. Then we meet Janey...alone in the hotel room where shed been meeting with Valentino to have sex, wondering why he hasnt freed her from the ropes that tie her to the bed. We figure out that Janey is a lot harder and less innocent than we expect a seventeen-year-old to be, experienced in things she shouldnt be. All these perspectives work well together, telling us not only the tension-filled story of the hunt for Janey, but doing a great deal to characterize each person, grounding them in reality. In some ways, the terrible thing that made Paris flee her life and come to Austin is as interesting as the main story...as she slowly reveals the answers, it makes her relationship with Dean seem more tragic.

Brown also throws in a ton of red herrings...from Deans own son Gavin to the creepy co-worker who makes working late seem just a little more dangerous, we have plenty of suspects to choose from. The woman whose husband may be cheating on her (she speaks of how good he is with smokescreens and lies) leads us to wonder if her husband is the kidnapper...after all, the more we find out about him, the viler he seems. Is Brown leading us along a chain of evidence, or just giving us the largest red herring of all? This is part of the charm of the book... we're definitely kept guessing.

Paris is very well done...shes so knowledgeable about her job that we have a real feel for the world of late night radio; and the things she has gone through, her struggle to do right, makes her easy to feel for. The romance between her and Dean works well, slightly bittersweet, growing as it does out of their past. The fact that they might work things out and be together by the end of the book, after all, is another small triumph in the story.

Well crafted and suspenseful and a even a little edgier than usual for Brown, this many layered story will definitely make you think twice before going out in the dark.