TEST
In recent years innovative romance author Theresa Weir has turned to writing straight suspense under the name Anne Frasier. As in her romances, her suspense plots mix familiar murder mystery elements with dark and unique touches. In Garden of Darkness, Frasier returns to the haunted town of Tuonela, Wisconsin for another round of disturbingly well-written mysterious doings.
Tuonela is a town built by those who felt the need to escape from Old Tuonela and to rebuild elsewhere. A charismatic leader had been responsible for horrific events in Old Tuonela and there were those who feared his evil did not die with him. However, even in the new town of Tuonela, evil seems to be afoot. The preserved body of Old Tuonela’s leader, known as the Pale Immortal, has been placed on display and a mysterious killing follows it.
Rachel Burton, the town’s medical examiner, plans to leave Tuonela behind forever and start a new life for herself and her unborn child somewhere free of the town’s taint. However, before she can make good her escape, the skinned body of a woman is found in the woods and Rachel finds herself drawn into investigating the nightmare.
In addition to Rachel’s role, the story focuses on several other plotlines and characters’ points of view. Evan Stroud, a man afflicted with a disease leaving him unable to venture into daylight, still lives in Old Tuonela and finds himself compelled to excavate the site to search for the secrets of its residents. His torment reaches such a fever pitch that one begins to question whether it is madness or possession that drives him.
The mixture of Rachel’s informed fears of Old Tuonela with Evan’s tortured quest, together with the growing realization of Evan’s teenage son that something has gone seriously wrong not with just his father, but with the town, and the discoveries of a Blair Witch Project – like student documentary crew, make for wonderful world-building. No one person holds all the answers, but taken together, the various perspectives start to fit together and gradually draw the reader ever deeper into a truly horrifying world.
At first, the horror builds slowly. I determined almost from the first that some supernatural hand must be involved in the murder that occurs at the opening of the book, but its nature was difficult to discern right away. As the story moves along – and I picked up more clues – Frasier does a good job of making the picture gradually clearer without giving the whole game away too far in advance of the plot’s great climax.
The one major weakness of this book is its reliance on Pale Immortal, its predecessor. Since I did not manage to locate and read the previous book until after reading this one, I felt somewhat confused while reading the first part of this novel. One can pick up the basic outline of the story fairly easily, but the action in this book makes reference to characters and events of the first. In addition, I could have used a little more depth of character. Though Rachel and Evan are the primary characters and there are hints of a romance of sorts, this is truly an ensemble piece. The reader learns interesting facets of each person’s character(and some of them are decidedly unorthodox), but I could have used a little more insight into them.
Even with the weaknesses noted above, I enjoyed this novel overall. In Garden of Darkness, the author does a remarkable job of plunging the reader into the midst of a bleak, haunted town and then gradually building suspense until the reader is caught in a truly creepy world. Those who enjoy dark suspense or unusual characters will likely enjoy this one.
Grade: B
Book Type: Suspense
Sensuality: N/A
Review Date: 12/12/07
Publication Date: 2007
I enjoy spending as much time as I can between the covers of a book, traveling through time and around the world. When I'm not having adventures with fictional characters, I'm an attorney in Virginia and I love just hanging out with my husband, little man, and the cat who rules our house.
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Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.