Title: The Essence of Darkness
Author: Tom Clearlake
Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller
Format: Kindle ARC
No. of Pages: 447
Date of Publication: April 18, 2020
Description: Five unexplained child disappearances have plagued the small town of St. Marys in the space of four months. All the elements indicate that these are abductions. FBI Special Agent Eliott Cooper is sent to investigate.
Little by little, he uncovers facts that he can’t rationally explain. Soon, he finds that a dark and very ancient evil seems to have taken over the forests around the city.
This is only the beginning of his investigation...
My Thoughts: I almost didn't complete this book as I found it extremely difficult to get into it until I was a little more than half way through. Honestly, I thought about putting this book down a number of times but since I had requested the book from Netgalley and it was granted to me, I felt an obligation to try to complete it.
I requested the book because of the synopsis of it sounded really interesting and right up my alley. I love to read murder mystery and thriller books, which is what this sounded like what it was. It has five unexplained child disappearances and the FBI is involved and trying to solve the case. However, once the main character starts to investigate it and gets into the forest that is around the city, things go from your typical mystery thriller book to more supernatural. Now don't get me wrong, also enjoy a good supernatural book but it has to be done right.
One of the hardest things that was really hard to get past was the way that Tom Clearlake writes, as it is not the way that people typically talk. Tom Clearlake also uses a lot of words that are not very common and I found myself having to use the dictionary function of my kindle app to look up the word. I consider myself to be quite smart, so this was not something that I was liking. Tom Clearlake also uses footnotes to explain things that he mentions in the story. I found that these footnotes distracted from the story taking place and was completely unnecessary. I actually just skipped over them in their entirety after reading the first few.
The setting of the story itself takes place in multiple places in the world. You have the U.S.A., Russia, Germany, etc. This is actually part of the story that I actually liked because it was using resources from multiple agencies across the globe to solve what turns out to be a lot huger issue.
As previously mentioned, there is a supernatural aspect to this book. You have grimoires, witches, cults, and cannibalism. Tom Clearlake takes a very unusual take on these topics in this story. I am still not sure what I think about it.
I was not very happy with the way that the story ended as it was confusing and left you guessing. I think I figured it out but I am not sure and I don't like that unknown. I guess it is possible that their could always be a second book and if there is than I am not quite sure if I would pick it up or not. I think it would depend on where Tom Clearlake would take a sequel. However, at this point in time I don't know of any sequel coming our way.
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars. If the story had not picked up its pace and managed to draw my interest into it than I would have given this book 1 out of 5 stars.
Thank you Netgalley and Moonlight for the early review copy. This is my honest opinion.
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