Deann Dark

Deann Dark – The protagonist of the Dark series, a spinoff of the bestselling police procedural series, The Hightower Chronicles, written by Blaine DeLano, which featured two police detectives, Hightower and Deann 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 following that fall.

The murderer in Dark in Death modeled her crimes after the Dark series, beginning with Rosie Kent (Dark Falls), continuing with Chanel Rylan (Dark Days), and winding up with Loxie Flash (Dark Deeds) before she was caught and stopped by Felicity Lomare.

The Dark series centered on a strong, somewhat reckless woman - female empowerment after she ditched Hightower, her male partner. She still sought justice, but often broke rules to find it now that she was no longer with the police. Most of the victims were female - in the first one, she didn't get justice for her friend's sister, the LC, she left the police force because she became embittered by the restrictions on police work, and devoted herself to female victims.

Dark was fifteen years younger than DeLano, so about 28, in better shape, better-looking, had never been married or had children, ate fast food, and drank scotch. Her relationship with her mother was strained at best, since Maggie Dark was a user of people. She (presumably Deann, not Maggie) liked loud music and bars, breaking rules as much for the fun of it as expediency.

1. Dark Falls:
   • Victim: a young street-level LC, only a few weeks into the job, 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. No other injuries. 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.
   • Killer: a fairly traditional wife and mother, modeled in part on DeLano. She had a psychotic break when she realized her husband used very young LCs, and murdered three before they caught her. The white scarf and bow symbolized the sash and bow from her wedding gown.
2. Dark Days:
   • Victim: Amelia Benson, a young actress who held a series of jobs, as her acting income didn't pay the rent.
   • Scenario: While she watched a pivotal scene in Dial M for Murder, the killer stabbed her with an ice pick through the base of her skull.
   • Killer: Male screenwriter, paid to kill the actress in exchange for having his script produced.
   • Resolution: The screenwriter and producer had a falling out and the producer killed the screenwriter, setting it up to look like suicide. Dark was already looking at the producer, plus the screenwriter left the outline of a new script on the same computer as the fake suicide note, and it mirrored the deal that was made and the killing.
3. Dark Deeds:
   • Victim: the main murder was done by poisoning, in an edgy, popular club, a crowded dance club. Cyanide added to a pomtini (martini flavored with pomegranate). The victim was a minor celebrity, the girlfriend of a trash rock musician. She was a bad girl, wild child, living on the edge and often over it. She used people as freely and carelessly as she used illegals.
4. Fourth book was unnamed:
   • Victim was 68, worth about 260 million dollars, both widowed and divorced, but not currently married or cohabbing, and had a greedy, murderous son and a screw-up daughter who could be framed. The killer was a 35-year-old male with dark, curly hair, past the jawline, and dark blue, almost navy, eyes. The victim lived in a mansion, where the son, Calvin Underwood, pushed her down the stairs to her death, calling her penny-pinching and saying she was getting what was coming to her.
5. Fifth book was also unnamed:
   • Killer was a married socialite who killed her secret working-class lover in her workshop with a hammer after he dumped her.

Also in the series: Sudden Dark (Fall, 2059 release)

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