Darkness Falls by Alex Knight

Gosh, I've been quiet for a while, haven't I? Apologies, life and all that, you know how it is. Anyway, I'm back with an absolute banger! Darkness Falls by Alex Knight is out today and I was lucky enough to get my hands on an early copy. And goodness, I fair raced through it - couldn't turn the pages fast enough! If that wasn't enough, I also caught up with Alex a few days back to chat about the book, and other things - find out more below.

The Blurb

Twenty years ago, her brother was murdered. Tonight, she's found his killer.

Thessaly Hanlon is four hours into a long drive home through the night when she pulls into a 24-hour roadside diner to take a break. She's exhausted, but when she hears a chillingly familiar voice from the next booth, she wonders if he'll ever sleep again.

The voice is unmistakable. It belongs to Casper Sturgis, the man who murdered Thessaly's brother two decades before, and then disappeared without a trace.

Thessaly makes the decision to follow the killer. As Thessaly begins to unravel the second life of Casper Sturgis, she finds that digging into the past can have deadly consequences...

Darkness Falls is published today by Orion.

My Review

This is the second book from Alex Knight following last year's Hunted, which I loved. They are both standalones so you don't need to worry which order you read them in but I would recommend you read them both.

Darkness Falls follows the fabulously named Thessaly Hanlon. Although 20 years have passed, she still remembers the night her brother as murdered as if it was yesterday. And she remembers the man who murdered him just as clearly. He disappeared after that might and has never been caught. On a dreadful night, with awful weather which reminded me of a wet Glasgow evening, she pulls off the road at a small rest stop diner to get dry and drink coffee. All that changes when she heard the voice of Casper Sturgis, the man who killed her brother. The police don't take an active interest, after all it's a twenty year old crime and only a brief sighting, but Thessaly can't let it lie and sets out to find Sturgis herself.

It's a fantastic opening and the pace never lets up. This is a cat and mouse chase with a difference - here the mouse is chasing the cat, and taking all kinds of risks to do so. I loved Thessaly. She's strong, intelligent and determined to get justice for her brother. She doesn't always make good choices, but who does? She's really well written, believable. One thing I love about this book is that it's populated by strong women. In fact, men, with one notable exception, don't come out of this well at all. As well as Thessaly, there is Casey, a scared wife who wants to do right by her son, Washington, a dogged police officer who becomes involved, even Kayla, a young waitress who goes out of her way to help Thessaly. All beautifully written, perfectly rounded characters. To be fair, all the guys are brilliant characters too, just not necessarily one's I'd want to share a beer with...

I don't want to say too much about the plot for fear of spoilers. I'll just say that tracking down Sturgis is not a simple task, and Thessaly puts herself in peril more than once. The whole thing has a tense claustrophobic feel about it. This comes, partly, I think, from the incredibly exciting denouement, and partly because the number of key players is so small.

Darkness Falls is a tense, exciting, intelligent, fast paced, action filled crime thriller populated by well rounded characters. As I said in my opener, it's an absolute banger! Highly recommend this one.


The Author

Alex Knight was born in Glasgow and studied English at the University of Stirling. He works as a systems administrator by day, and writes thrillers by night. Alex lives near Glasgow with his wife and three children.


Author Chat

I caught up with Alex a couple of days ago for coffee and a chat.

Darkness Falls was his lockdown project and, as he says in the acknowledgements, he thinks that probably influenced his writing a little, changing the setting for the ending amongst other things. As I mentioned above, I certainly thought it had a claustrophobic feel about it. I commented on the fact that the majority of the key characters are women, and well written ones at that. For Alex, the important thing is getting the character right, so it almost shouldn't matter what gender they are. In fact, Thessaly was originally going be a guy - I wonder what his name would've been?! Talking of which, I asked Alex about coming up with names. He told me some come easily, some are inspired by something he's seen or read and often he'll use placeholder names for the early drafts, only slotting in the final choices later.

I'm always interested in the research authors do. I know, from previous conversations, that Alex is a big fan of good old Google for this, although for this book he also did some background reading for one or two elements of the storyline. I asked him, if he had to disappear, really disappear like Casper Sturgis did, where in the US would he go? The answer was North California, with its beautiful mountains and forests, but generally better weather than here in Scotland! Did he think he would change his name to stay hidden? Possibly. But given Facebook notifies his other alter ego (Mason Cross) whenever he posts a picture under his real name because it thinks he's an imposter he might not have to! My favourite story of the morning.

I also want to know what authors have been listening to, what was on the Spotify playlist. Alex chooses mainly film scores, without lyrics to distract him, and has found an excellent Australian radio station that plays just that. Much of Darkness Falls was written in his back garden in the good weather we had over lockdown and as a result Taylor Swift made it into the playlist too. Alex felt she had the right vibe for the book as you will see when I asked him to name three songs or pieces of music that would be on the Darkness Falls soundtrack. They are:

- Darkness on the Edge of Town by Bruce Springsteen (this was the working title of the book)
- Mornin' Glory by Bobbi Gentry (plays in the book)
- Exile by Taylor Swift

Finally, I asked Alex what he's currently working on and he got all secretive! 

'I'm working on a couple of things but nothing I can talk about', which all sounds super exciting. He also has a side project on which he's committed to write at least a hundred words a day for the whole year. He's usually writing between 5000 and 6000 words a month on this so it's growing quite quickly. I do know a teeny bit about this one and am fairly certain you won't be disappointed when it finally comes to be.

Actually, there was one other question. Alex is a big comic fan, would he like to write a graphic novel?
'Would love to! Just need DC or Marvel to ask me.' You heard it here first.

 

Thanks so much to Alex for taking the time to catch up and answer these and many other questions. If you're heading to Stirling this weekend for Bloody Scotland, Alex is taking part in the 'Shocking Twists and Big Reveals' panel on Friday evening. If you're not heading through in person but would still like tot attend, online tickets are available for individual events or for the whole weekend, and it's a cracking line up this year. More information is available from the Bloody Scotland website.