I’m on the blog tour for A Map of The Dark by Karen Ellis a fascinating, intellectual and unusual psychological thriller. A Map Of The Dark is the first in an exciting sounding new series.
A Map Of The Dark is available in hardback and ebook now here.
Book Blurb:
A girl missing
A woman, searching
A killer, planning…
A thrilling new FBI series for fans of Tess Gerritsen and Karin Slaughter.
FBI Agent Elsa Myers finds missing people.
She knows how it feels to be lost…
Though her father lies dying in a hospital north of New York City, Elsa cannot refuse a call for help. A teenage girl has gone missing from Forest Hills, Queens, and during the critical first hours of the case, a series of false leads hides the fact that she did not go willingly.
With each passing hour, as the hunt for Ruby deepens into a search for a man who may have been killing for years, the case starts to get underneath Elsa’s skin. Everything she has buried – her fraught relationship with her sister and niece, her self-destructive past, her mother’s death – threatens to resurface, with devastating consequences.
In order to save the missing girl, she may have to lose herself…and return to the darkness she’s been hiding from for years.
My Review:
A Map Of The Dark is an unusual psychological thriller as it doesn’t just focus on the kidnapping and the fate of the victim. Instead there is a lot of character development, particularly in the first half of the book. We learn more about Eliza’s past in particular her childhood which was quite traumatic at times and the fraught relationship she had with her mother. This is done in a series of flashback which is interspersed with chapters regarding the ongoing investigation and are quite harrowing to read at times.
Eliza is definitely a complex character but one that I found myself warming to more as the story unfolded and I learnt more about her. It was quite poignant to learn about how her childhood still affects her in her everyday life, even when she is at the top of her game work wise. Most of the time she comes across as being quite confident and able but she has moments of self doubt due to her experiences which make her seem quite human. It was heart breaking to read about the coping strategies she had in place for such occasions and how little things could floor this otherwise very confident women. Her partnership with Lex seems very well suited, particularly when the reader starts learning a bit more about his history too. I enjoyed reading about their partnership and how they dealt with the case throughout the book.
The story is quite dark due to some of the subject matters discussed and is quite chilling in places, particularly when it becomes obvious that not everything is as it first appears regarding Ruby’s disappearance. Not everyone is telling Eliza and Lex the truth which adds a very intriguing edge to the story as the reader tries to figure out what is happening and why supposed friends and witness are lying.
This is the first book by Karen Ellis that I have read and it will be interesting to see where this series goes next. Her writing reminded me a bit of Sarah Hillary as it was quite character driven and emotional which is similar to her writing I felt. The focus on the characters made the book more interesting then a normal crime book as I felt I was more invested in what happened to the characters and that I cared more about what happened to them.
Thank you to Louise Swanell and Jenni Leech for my copy of this book and for inviting me on the blog tour.
About the Author:
Karen Ellis is the psuedonym of Katie Lief, the author of several internationally best-selling crime novels including The Money Kill, which was nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, and One Cold Night which was one of the UK’s top selling digital publications in 2012. For more information and to contact Katia follow @katialief.
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Over The Rainbow Blog 