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Dark Star
James David “Deacon” Jones, a sensitive, tortured genius, knew his life was less than perfect. It had always been a journey of hope defeated by disappointment, good intentions overcome by darkness, and friendship ruined by mistrust.
During his first eighteen years Deacon’s overbearing father, the Reverend Mr. Jones, ruled him with an iron hand and an open Bible. Deacon escaped his father and made his own way for ten exceptionally good years. He was successful in business and with a few exceptions, in life. Finally at twenty eight years of age he thought he was happy, at least until an unseen source distorted his understanding of happiness. Everything changed when unsolicited religious propaganda began to arrive in the mail. Haunted by horrific nightmares he began to drink to excess and watched his fragile contentment rapidly slip away.
Shortly thereafter, Estrella “Star” del Rio, seemingly the best thing that had ever happened to him, suddenly appeared. With her came a series of tragic events that drove Deacon ever closer to the brink of despair. He suffered black outs during which murders occurred that only he could have committed. He doubted himself, blamed himself, and with the help of his best friend Doc, and the love of his life, Star, he struggled to learn the truth while secretly planning to end his own life. He went into hiding and quickly realized the only way to uncover the truth required that he step back into his own sordid past and dredge up memories that he preferred stay buried.
The murders began nearly a decade earlier in California. A pimp and a hooker died one day apart; their cause of death was identical. In the spring of Deacon’s final demise another pimp was murdered on the riverfront in St. Louis, Missouri. His corpse was bisected like something from the Old Testament. A few months after that three women were murdered. The St. Louis Major Case Squad had only one suspect, James David Jones.
Estrella del Rio, a highly intelligent, innocent child, was the daughter of a dead American and a Mexican whore. When she was fourteen her coarse, money-hungry mother orchestrated her loss of innocence. Her reward was a lone morsel of dark chocolate. The un-embodied psyche, who called herself Star, arrived during the deflowering, took control, and became the second of three personalities to inhabit Estrella’s single physical presence. Star showed Estrella how to exact revenge for her loss of happiness. She murdered her mother and their shared pimp, without a shred of remorse. As she felt their source of life ebb away a new feeling of Godlike power coursed through her veins, but it was not enough.
Star found Deacon in St. Louis on the road to his recovery. His friends had dried him out and set him to mend. She intricately threaded herself into his life and immediately began to control his destiny. The murders were necessary to implicate Deacon in everyone’s eyes, including his own. The nightmares were necessary to distort his reality. The drugs were essential to the planting of memories. Through her madness, she carefully executed each detail and gradually drove him into an insufferable maelstrom. She made only one mistake. She miscalculated Deacon’s strength of heart. Star meant to make him want her. She never imagined that he would want her so much that he would do anything to protect her. Their tangible, emotional connection and his undying love began to work against her. Finally, on the last day Star revealed to him a devastating family secret that would change his life forever. A secret that caused Deacon Jones to remember things he never knew.
Star saw Deacon as weak, but she was wrong. Only he possessed the power to beat her at her own hellish plan...
During his first eighteen years Deacon’s overbearing father, the Reverend Mr. Jones, ruled him with an iron hand and an open Bible. Deacon escaped his father and made his own way for ten exceptionally good years. He was successful in business and with a few exceptions, in life. Finally at twenty eight years of age he thought he was happy, at least until an unseen source distorted his understanding of happiness. Everything changed when unsolicited religious propaganda began to arrive in the mail. Haunted by horrific nightmares he began to drink to excess and watched his fragile contentment rapidly slip away.
Shortly thereafter, Estrella “Star” del Rio, seemingly the best thing that had ever happened to him, suddenly appeared. With her came a series of tragic events that drove Deacon ever closer to the brink of despair. He suffered black outs during which murders occurred that only he could have committed. He doubted himself, blamed himself, and with the help of his best friend Doc, and the love of his life, Star, he struggled to learn the truth while secretly planning to end his own life. He went into hiding and quickly realized the only way to uncover the truth required that he step back into his own sordid past and dredge up memories that he preferred stay buried.
The murders began nearly a decade earlier in California. A pimp and a hooker died one day apart; their cause of death was identical. In the spring of Deacon’s final demise another pimp was murdered on the riverfront in St. Louis, Missouri. His corpse was bisected like something from the Old Testament. A few months after that three women were murdered. The St. Louis Major Case Squad had only one suspect, James David Jones.
Estrella del Rio, a highly intelligent, innocent child, was the daughter of a dead American and a Mexican whore. When she was fourteen her coarse, money-hungry mother orchestrated her loss of innocence. Her reward was a lone morsel of dark chocolate. The un-embodied psyche, who called herself Star, arrived during the deflowering, took control, and became the second of three personalities to inhabit Estrella’s single physical presence. Star showed Estrella how to exact revenge for her loss of happiness. She murdered her mother and their shared pimp, without a shred of remorse. As she felt their source of life ebb away a new feeling of Godlike power coursed through her veins, but it was not enough.
Star found Deacon in St. Louis on the road to his recovery. His friends had dried him out and set him to mend. She intricately threaded herself into his life and immediately began to control his destiny. The murders were necessary to implicate Deacon in everyone’s eyes, including his own. The nightmares were necessary to distort his reality. The drugs were essential to the planting of memories. Through her madness, she carefully executed each detail and gradually drove him into an insufferable maelstrom. She made only one mistake. She miscalculated Deacon’s strength of heart. Star meant to make him want her. She never imagined that he would want her so much that he would do anything to protect her. Their tangible, emotional connection and his undying love began to work against her. Finally, on the last day Star revealed to him a devastating family secret that would change his life forever. A secret that caused Deacon Jones to remember things he never knew.
Star saw Deacon as weak, but she was wrong. Only he possessed the power to beat her at her own hellish plan...
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First published December 15, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 25, 2011
James David “Deacon” Jones, a sensitive tortured genius, knows his life is less than perfect. His was always a journey of hope defeated by disappointment, good intentions overcome by darkness, and friendship ruined by mistrust. Finally, at twenty-eight years of age, he thinks he has found happiness, but then the horror begins.
Estrella “Star” del Rio is an intelligent, self-centered prostitute with three distinct personalities who cares for no one except herself. Since she was old enough to remember, she has only been able to think of one thing, revenge against those that she blames for her plight.
As part of her plan for revenge, Star masterfully inserts herself into Deacon’s life and for six months uses her hatred to turn his world upside down and rock the streets of St. Louis.
Deacon believes she is his lover. Star knows she is his enemy. Together they uncover things about their pasts that separately they never suspected. In the end, Star reveals a devastating family secret that will change Deacon’s life forever.
Star sees Deacon as weak, but she is wrong. Only he possesses the power to beat her at her own hellish plan...
Estrella “Star” del Rio is an intelligent, self-centered prostitute with three distinct personalities who cares for no one except herself. Since she was old enough to remember, she has only been able to think of one thing, revenge against those that she blames for her plight.
As part of her plan for revenge, Star masterfully inserts herself into Deacon’s life and for six months uses her hatred to turn his world upside down and rock the streets of St. Louis.
Deacon believes she is his lover. Star knows she is his enemy. Together they uncover things about their pasts that separately they never suspected. In the end, Star reveals a devastating family secret that will change Deacon’s life forever.
Star sees Deacon as weak, but she is wrong. Only he possesses the power to beat her at her own hellish plan...
May 25, 2012
Let me start by saying that I didn't dislike this book. The plot was compelling, and the characters were unusual. I wanted to know what would happen next and how it would turn out.
That said, I found it difficult to read more than a few pages in this book before the writing style (e.g., purple prose, stilted dialogue, and overuse of commas) would pull me out of it mentally. Maybe part of that is because I recently read Stephen King's book On Writing, which is a master class on the craft. I wouldn't expect every author to follow King's style, but his reasoning makes a lot of sense. One of his assertions is that an author should lose a significant percentage of word count (don't remember the exact number... 10%? 20%?) when going back and editing his work. I certainly think Dark Star could benefit from that sort of edit.
I also found other odd things that pulled me out of the story. One of the most severe was the lack of consistency in breaks -- the line of dashes or other symbols that let the reader know that time and/or place has changed. There were several instances where those things changed from one paragraph to the next, and I had to re-read it a few times to figure out what was now going on. Also, in at least one instance, there was a break used but the next paragraph was a direct continuation of what came before it.
If Alexander had used a good copy editor, I think Dark Star would be a really good book. It has good bones; it's merely overweight.
That said, I found it difficult to read more than a few pages in this book before the writing style (e.g., purple prose, stilted dialogue, and overuse of commas) would pull me out of it mentally. Maybe part of that is because I recently read Stephen King's book On Writing, which is a master class on the craft. I wouldn't expect every author to follow King's style, but his reasoning makes a lot of sense. One of his assertions is that an author should lose a significant percentage of word count (don't remember the exact number... 10%? 20%?) when going back and editing his work. I certainly think Dark Star could benefit from that sort of edit.
I also found other odd things that pulled me out of the story. One of the most severe was the lack of consistency in breaks -- the line of dashes or other symbols that let the reader know that time and/or place has changed. There were several instances where those things changed from one paragraph to the next, and I had to re-read it a few times to figure out what was now going on. Also, in at least one instance, there was a break used but the next paragraph was a direct continuation of what came before it.
If Alexander had used a good copy editor, I think Dark Star would be a really good book. It has good bones; it's merely overweight.
May 14, 2012
If you were to go by all those wonderful reviews until now who just could not put the book down, you would think you have got a pretty good read on your hands. I beg to differ.
The book is filled with bad prose, weird happenings, a very contrived plot, superfluous characters, twists in the plot just to up the 'shock' value and very badly put together narration.
The saving grace: the last few chapters where to all appearances, the author was in a hurry to wind up and finally started writing sensible prose with logical 'flow', skipping all the manufactured style. Clearly, the author can write but only if he wasn't so eager to please.
The book is filled with bad prose, weird happenings, a very contrived plot, superfluous characters, twists in the plot just to up the 'shock' value and very badly put together narration.
The saving grace: the last few chapters where to all appearances, the author was in a hurry to wind up and finally started writing sensible prose with logical 'flow', skipping all the manufactured style. Clearly, the author can write but only if he wasn't so eager to please.
May 24, 2012
While the book had a good premise, in my opinion it fell short. For starters, I couldn't tell if this was a thriller based off religious themes or if it was actually Christian fiction. I read the entire book and still don't know. The storyline was good, however, it was marred by punctuation errors which nearly drove me insane when I was trying to read it. The real kicker for me, and the ultimate downfall, was the absolute sappiness of the conversations between characters. I have yet to meet anyone, religious or otherwise, who actually talks like these characters do. I had no patience for it. Thankfully, it was free.
February 9, 2011
Dark Star is an exciting thriller. It will hold your interest and has an exciting ending. You will love it!
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June 2, 2016Keeps you guessing
This book was easy to get into and hard to put down. You think you've got it figured out and then you start doubting. Good story.
This book was easy to get into and hard to put down. You think you've got it figured out and then you start doubting. Good story.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews