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256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
The Dark Place follows Karl Kane, the gritty, gripping detective introduced in 2008's Bloodstorm. This second in the series conforms to the familiar norms of the PI genre: after a teasing, terrifying prologue Kane is seen sitting in his sweltering office on Belfast's Hill Street. In walks a woman in trouble- this time, a teenaged heroin addict whose younger sister, Martina Ferris, has disappeared. The client is deperately worried and the cops are not interested in looking for a recovering junkie with a reputation for running away, so it is down to debt-ridden Kane to take the case.
Kane's investigation takes him through the underbelly of city and society, into peripheral contact with corrupt and outmatched cops, and into his own painful past. As bodies pile up and his enemies circle in, Karl Kane learns what is rotten and terrifying behind the respectable facades of the city's elite and institutions (literally, in certain cases!). Fans of the PI form will be pleased- and be pleased that Millar is not afraid to break conventions. By the climax, there is no predicting which way Millar is going to play it out.
The places that Kane goes on his journey are exceptionally dark. Imagine Philip Marlowe investigating the disappearances from Se7en or Saw. Marlowe would probably take the first flight back to LA, but Kane is a wee harcore Norn Iron man. Graphic and violent with more deviant sex than Val McDermid and the most convincing drug trip since Gene Kerrigan's The Midnight Choir, Millar's Belfast is worlds away from the catchy punk rock jaunt of Colin Bateman's Divorcing Jack.
Like Bateman, Millar leavens his grit with humor. With Martina Ferris missing and other young, violated bodies turning up, Kane cannot sit comfortably back hammering out his own manuscripts and studying the racing papers. Is it because old Karl is a valiant knight at heart? Erm, no. He cannot sit still because he is the only PI in all of crime fiction with raging hemorrhoids.
Piles aside, Millar's dialogue is sharp and fast. The writing has real originality. I had never before heard of the villain's disturbing MO, and the manner in which Kane learns the killer's identity is both plausible and something that would never have come from an American PI novel.