Dark Falls – The first book in the Deann Dark series, written by Blaine DeLano and featuring ex-police detective Deann Dark, now a private investigator. It was a spinoff of DeLano’s bestselling police procedural series, The Hightower Chronicles, which featured two police detectives, Hightower and Dark. The first of the eight DeAnn Dark books, Dark Falls, had Dark turning in her badge by the end, going into private investigation. It was a spring release as part of the Hightower series, eight years ago, with the second (Dark Days) following that fall.
The first victim was a young street-level LC[1] named Pryor[2] Carridine[3], only a few weeks into the job, who was strangled in a flop many used for their work. Her body showed no signs of recent sexual activity, and wouldn’t, as this was her first client of the night. There were no other injuries, and a sedative mixed with wine - a cheap Chianti - was discovered in her system during the autopsy. The killer used a white scarf, left in place and tied into a bow as the side of her neck.
The killer was a fairly traditional wife and mother, modeled in part on DeLano. She had a psychotic break when she realized her husband was using very young LCs, and she murdered three before they caught her. The white scarf and bow symbolized the sash and bow from her wedding gown.
Rosie Kent, a new-to-the-life 18-year-old street level LC, was murdered in the same manner in Dark in Death - strangled , no sexual activity, left in a time-flop, killer used a white sash, tied in a fancy bow on the left side of the throat. Reineke and Jenkinson caught the case, but it was still open when Chanel Rylan was murdered and DeLano came forward to give Eve the similarities to her books. The other similarities with both the book and the case were the victim was tranq’d with an OTC sedative mixed in Chianti, no signs of struggle or other injuries, same age range, same race, both new to the life.[4] They had consulted with Strighter rather than Mira, but there wasn’t much to go on and the case went nowhere.
Mira remembered reading the book, remembered that Deann Dark knew the victim (it was her friend’s younger sister), that the killer was female, and the victim represented the LCs she learned her husband engaged. Mira thought the killer Eve was hunting was detail oriented and very controlled, and the killing was an act, a reproduction of something he or she envied or admired, or both. She thought it was either an obsessed reader or a frustrated writer, or both. He put himself in the story, wrote it from his own point of view, and admired and resented DeLano.[1]
Kent and Pryor Carridine shared youth, recklessness, inexperience, as well as solid suburban, edging toward conservative, backgrounds. The killer, whose gender DeLano kept neutral, presumably to keep the reader guessing, showed faked nerves to give the victim false confidence of being in charge, and just as Eve had imagined it, had Carridine freshen up in the book, with a glimpse inside her mind of how this would be easy money, thinking about a pair of mag shoes she’d be able to buy, and how her lame sister didn’t get how much fun this was.
She stepped out, found wine on the table, had a drink with the killer, and undressed first, by request, doing a striptease, which she’d practiced in front of a mirror. The killer looked like money and Carridine was hoping for a nice tip. She started to feel dizzy, but finished off the wine per the killer’s insistence. Her last thought as the killer was picking up her clothes and folding them neatly was that her own mother used to do that. The killer then took the sash out of her pocket, wound it around Carridine’s neck, and thought of punishment come due because she’d had no right to flaunt those firm, perfect breasts, that smooth, perfect skin, and that young face. Nerves, fears, doubts faded away in cold rage. She then pulled it tight and made a perfect bow on the side of her throat, making the death a gift.
Eve thought it was obviously a female killer because of the way she looked at Carridine’s body before the kill - with envy, not lust or disgust or admiration or perversion. It was clearly an older woman, envying the young. She was on a mission: revenge and protecting her family, her home, her way of life. Eve thought she should have punished the husband for cheating with barely legal LCs, not the LCs for doing their jobs. She thought she should have whacked off the husband’s dick, ground it up, cooked it up in a pie, and force-fed it to him.
She killed three LCs, but before the fourth, Dark hacked into the killer’s pocket ‘link and found the first three victims and their data listed, along with three more, and stopped her. Hightower had been building a case, had a plan for drawing the killer in, but Dark jumped over the line, and if Hightower hadn’t covered her, would’ve lost her badge and soiled the case against a serial killer. Eve thought she was right to turn in her badge at the end. Roarke thought she was in emotional turmoil since she’d known the first victim since childhood, but Eve said she was a cop. Hightower found her at the flop in time to prevent Dark killing the killer, which Roarke considered saving a life, and Eve considered warping a badge.
Roarke said Hightower reminded him of Eve - justice first - an excellent cop, with good instincts, although not as deep as Eve’s, and he never deviated from the goal of being a cop. He was by the book but understood the book wasn’t only the law, the rules, but people and justice. Eve thought Dark was a little like Roarke - the book was a limitation and she became frustrated by procedure. She grew up rough, learning how to slip and slide early.[3]
The killer was Amanda Young in the book, and Ann Elizabeth Smith said she recognized Pryor Carridine right away - young, rebellious, foolish. Trading her body for money and thrills. Young grieved as she killed - grieved for the life she’d learned was a lie, for the husband who’d made that life a lie. Smith didn’t grieve, so she didn’t make mistakes. Her hands didn’t shake because she wrote them steady. Her heart didn’t pound in her ears as she tightened the scarf around Pryor/Rosie’s neck because she wrote the quiet and calm.[5]
References:
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Dark in Death, Chapter 6
- ↑ Dark in Death, Chapter 7
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Dark in Death, Chapter 9
- ↑ Dark in Death, Chapter 5
- ↑ Dark in Death, Chapter 22