Series: John Dark #1
Published by Headshot Books on September 24, 2021
Format: eARC
Source: Author
Pages: 260
Amazon UK, Amazon US
Goodreads
THE BREAKOUT SUPERNATURAL THRILLER FROM ICELANDIC WRITER JOHANN THORSSON
Detective John Dark’s daughter has been missing for two years. In his frantic and unfruitful search for her two years ago, John Dark overreached and was reprimanded and demoted.
Now suddenly back into the homicide department, Dark is put on a chilling case – a man who killed his wife in their locked house and then dressed the body up to resemble a deer, but claims to remember none of it. A few days later an impossibly similar case crops up connecting the suspects to a prep school and a thirty year old missing persons’ case.
Just as he is getting back into his old groove, a new lead in his daughter’s disappearance pops up and threatens to derail his career again.
Time is running out and John Dark needs to solve the case before more people are killed, and while there is still hope to find his daughter.
In the style of True Detective and Silence of the Lambs, WHITESANDS is a thrilling supernatural crime novel.
Before I start my review I have to say a big apology to Johann, the publisher and Tracy for how late my review is. I hate letting people down the best of times and I hate that this review is so late.
Wow wow wow wow and guess what wow! This is everything I wanted and needed in a book. I saw the cover and I knew it was a book I needed to read. This book hooked me in from the get-go and neither John nor Daniel would let me go.
Opening up with us meeting John, he is searching for his missing daughter and my heart was breaking. I couldn’t imagine what he was going through, however, through Johann’s writing I felt it. I felt the lows of the cold case, the hope, false or otherwise to find his daughter, and well the highs were minimal.
However, we then meet Daniel, and my heart went out for him and his situation and I seriously had no idea how he would slot into this story. When we start to see the magic of these threads by the author, I didn’t foresee this story.
The case Dark is forced on, one to shut quick to get back on the team with his partner, is just so bizarre and creepy! I was thrilled by it, by the description of how things played out and the arrangement. Yes, they are terrifying but there was something quite ethereal about it.
Between these murders and Daniel, I had such a strong feeling of the Hannibal TV show. The way they introduced Will Graham and how he sees the world and how the murders are done, artistically, horrifying and something kind of beautiful, which is exactly what you find here. Daniel views the world in a similar fashion and well the murders…..they have the same effect of awe and shock. I was mesmerised by the language, description and writing by Johann. To have me feeling all of these feelings about murders and people is just amazing.
Not only did he hook me in, keep me dangling with the side stories, but that ending, that epilogue! I mean jeez! What a clanger and a banger of one! I need to read the next book, I need to know more about that epilogue and the darkness coming, how it will all link together and will we get any closure.
I really have been so excited about this book. I loved every aspect of it, as we explored so much, we see Detective Dark, we see John Dark and we see John. During this book, we live with his different personas and aspects of his life. This book has played on my mind and I am still thinking about it.
There is so much to discuss but I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair to do, but what a book! If you like crime thrillers, with a lot of added twists and thrills then pick this up. However, if you have that sensation that your body isn’t yours anymore, that someone is in your house….RUN
Until next time xxx
Thanks to Tracy at Compulsive Readers for the tour invite and the author for a copy of their book in return for my honest and unbiased review
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
Stay and have a chat :)