This book review will be a bit different because the book or books I’m reviewing are a bit different. But what would one expect from Claire Duffy, a writer, podcaster and … paddleboarder!

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Claire Duffy is well on her way to becoming one of my go-to authors for crime fiction. Dark of Night kept me on edge as main character Ruari tries to find out who killed Lorna, the woman he loved. I love this aspect of the story: the “investigator” is a citizen, a friend of the murdered woman, rather than a detective or retired cop as they usually are in crime fiction. Admittedly, Ruari is a former cop, but he is young and his tenure was short so he lacks many of the advantages that a seasoned, crusty retired cop would have.

Ruari is a very sympathetic character, a guy we can relate to as someone who too often lets opportunities slip through his fingers. Well, he wants to make up for that loss by finding Lorna’s killer. Problem is, Lorna is not the only victim. It soon appears we have a serial killer in our midst! Maybe even more than one!

In Dark of Night, Duffy moves the reader among various points of view, teasing us with hints and suspicions of just who is the killer or killers. I also really like the format of breaking each episode into dates and starting off each section with the time. It really helped in keeping track of just how fast this story goes. Duffy’s humor is spot-on and timed to ease the plot’s tension.

There’s a cliff-hanger at each episode’s ending, including Episode 3. That can be problematic if you don’t like waiting for the next installment. Think of it this way: Dark of Night is kind of like a TV series that takes a hiatus after so many episodes, leaving viewers to wait months before they can resume watching and find out how that season ends … and oftentimes there’s a cliffhanger at the end of a season so … you get the point. I did have the advantage of being able to read episodes 2 and 3 back-to-back … which actually I couldn’t help but do since I was totally sucked into the story.

Dark of Night is flush with characters, from the cops who are investigating the murders, the murder victims themselves, the survivors, the various suspects. I often thought of getting myself a whiteboard so I could write out each character and make my own connections, to try and solve the case.

I am on pins and needles for the second trilogy of the series, Just Before Dawn.

Pick up your own copies of Dark of Night at Amazon and start sleuthing: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_ebooks_1?ie=UTF8&text=CS+Duffy&search-alias=digital-text&field-author=CS+Duffy&sort=relevancerank

Find Claire Duffy at her website where you’ll find other ways to stalk follow her: http://www.csduffywriter.com/

Read Lorna’s Blog at http://www.csduffywriter.com/category/darkness/lornas-blog-darkness/ Lorna is the young woman whose murder starts off Dark of Night. Is it possible that she was killed because she knew too much?

Duffy also has a cool hangout on Facebook for readers of Dark of Night: https://www.facebook.com/groups/darkofnightbook/

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Comments are closed so you can hop (or paddleboard) over to Claire’s website or, better yet, to Amazon to purchase her books!