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Trish Maguire #4
Out of the Dark
An eight-year-old boy comes running out of the dark to find barrister Trish Maguire one wet Sunday night. Just before he can reach her, he's knocked over by a skidding car. Fighting to save his life, the rescue team finds Trish's name and address sewn into the boy's clothes. The police are convinced that he must be her son-but Trish knows he can't be. Is he connected with one of her clients? Could he be a blood relation? And who has sent him to Trish?
Recovering from a miscarriage, about to go to court with a career-changing commercial case, and missing her partner, George, who is 5,000 miles away, the last thing Trish wants is responsibility for a lost boy. But there is no one else. Her search for the boy's identity takes her to a brutal inner-city housing project, where she has to confront not only the reality of life for the poor and destitute, but also many of her own fears. News of a particularly brutal murder reaches her, and within hours she learns that her erratic father is the chief suspect. It will take all her resolution and integrity to pick her way through this maze.
The gulfs between rich and poor-and between the heroically honest and those for whom life and the law are always negotiable-rip off the last of Trish's self-protective blinders. There are choices to be made and lives to be saved.
Out of the Dark is a touching and gripping novel that looks unflinchingly at crime's most devastating consequences.
Recovering from a miscarriage, about to go to court with a career-changing commercial case, and missing her partner, George, who is 5,000 miles away, the last thing Trish wants is responsibility for a lost boy. But there is no one else. Her search for the boy's identity takes her to a brutal inner-city housing project, where she has to confront not only the reality of life for the poor and destitute, but also many of her own fears. News of a particularly brutal murder reaches her, and within hours she learns that her erratic father is the chief suspect. It will take all her resolution and integrity to pick her way through this maze.
The gulfs between rich and poor-and between the heroically honest and those for whom life and the law are always negotiable-rip off the last of Trish's self-protective blinders. There are choices to be made and lives to be saved.
Out of the Dark is a touching and gripping novel that looks unflinchingly at crime's most devastating consequences.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2002
About the author
Natasha Cooper
63 books17 followersaka N.J. Cooper, Kate Hatfield, Clare Layton, Daphne Wright.
Natasha Cooper was Chairman of the Crime Writers' Association in 2000/2001. She reviews books in THE TIMES, THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT and the NEW LAW JOURNAL. She is the author of, among others, FAULT LINES and PREY TO ALL.
Natasha Cooper was Chairman of the Crime Writers' Association in 2000/2001. She reviews books in THE TIMES, THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT and the NEW LAW JOURNAL. She is the author of, among others, FAULT LINES and PREY TO ALL.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 25, 2024
When a young boy is run over outside her flat, Trish Maguire accompanies him and the distraught driver to the hospital. Enquiring about the boy’s condition she is told that he had her name and address sewen into the seam of his fleece. ‘And he looks just like you!’
For Trish, trying to come to terms with some emotional problems, and coping with a big commercial case where she is acting as junior to her head of chambers, this is just one problem too many.
As she struggles to accept that this child must be related to her in some way, she starts to investigate the years between her father leaving her mother when she was a child, and coming back into her life. She meets strong resistance from her father to discuss previous relationships, but as the child, it seems will only talk to her, she feels compelled to establish if he is related to her. This decision puts her on a dangerous path as her investigations lead her closer to the boy’s mother. As she grapples with the family situation her loyalties are tested at work when she is confronted with a dilemma that may prejudice her client’s position and indeed her own.
In this the fourth book in the series Trish is beset by both personal and moral quandaries, and Natasha Cooper does a skilful job in providing an absorbing mystery, whilst exploring the complexities of both personal and working relationships. Although, dealing with serious issues, there are flashes of humour in the book, providing an excellent balance that enhances the readers enjoyment.
Most highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes
For Trish, trying to come to terms with some emotional problems, and coping with a big commercial case where she is acting as junior to her head of chambers, this is just one problem too many.
As she struggles to accept that this child must be related to her in some way, she starts to investigate the years between her father leaving her mother when she was a child, and coming back into her life. She meets strong resistance from her father to discuss previous relationships, but as the child, it seems will only talk to her, she feels compelled to establish if he is related to her. This decision puts her on a dangerous path as her investigations lead her closer to the boy’s mother. As she grapples with the family situation her loyalties are tested at work when she is confronted with a dilemma that may prejudice her client’s position and indeed her own.
In this the fourth book in the series Trish is beset by both personal and moral quandaries, and Natasha Cooper does a skilful job in providing an absorbing mystery, whilst exploring the complexities of both personal and working relationships. Although, dealing with serious issues, there are flashes of humour in the book, providing an excellent balance that enhances the readers enjoyment.
Most highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes
January 5, 2023
I liked the fun drama in the beginning, but as the book went along, I just found myself caring less and less. There were so many characters in so many brief scenes that to be honest, I kind of forgot who everyone was. They'd say George was doing xyz thing or Robert had shown up at someone's office, and for the life of me I could never remember who they were.
This book also felt like it lacked focus. There was such a broad scope that I didn't care about anyone or anything that was happening. I didn't get to know any of the characters. I didn't care about their feelings. There was a weird background financial crime case going on that had no bearing on anything in the book and no arc or conclusion. It just felt like a mess.
And it was also really obvious. You knew from the beginning what had happened because that was the entire point of the book. There wouldn't be any reason for a few characters to have POVs otherwise. I thought there might be something more to the ending, but after the reveal, the book just stopped.
I dunno. It wasn't a terrible read by any means, but by the ending, I just didn't have anything good to say about this.
This book also felt like it lacked focus. There was such a broad scope that I didn't care about anyone or anything that was happening. I didn't get to know any of the characters. I didn't care about their feelings. There was a weird background financial crime case going on that had no bearing on anything in the book and no arc or conclusion. It just felt like a mess.
And it was also really obvious. You knew from the beginning what had happened because that was the entire point of the book. There wouldn't be any reason for a few characters to have POVs otherwise. I thought there might be something more to the ending, but after the reveal, the book just stopped.
I dunno. It wasn't a terrible read by any means, but by the ending, I just didn't have anything good to say about this.
April 1, 2023
The book was going well until the end. The hints were there but, I kept ignoring them hoping against hope. But it ended as it did. Bummer. Antidote : Vampire Mine
I would liked have more interaction with the boy David, who spends a lot of time not talking.
t
I would liked have more interaction with the boy David, who spends a lot of time not talking.
t
August 23, 2016
When I searched for this title, I couldn't believe how many authors have used the same or similar title.
I am in awe of author Cooper for creating the character of Trish Maguire, who demonstrates both common humanity and uncommon perceptivity/compassion/imagination/logic/self-control and almost any other virtue you can think of. Trish is so compelling to me precisely because she is NOT perfect.
This is a vital installment in Trish's saga. It shows how she comes to take in her half-brother, young schoolboy David, after the violent murder of his mother (who is not Trish's mother).
David is not only traumatized, but trying to hold true to his mother's caution -- not to give details of their past -- such that Trish has to unravel not only why the mom was killed, but why David is acting as he is.
In the course of this task, Trish comes to suspect, and then exonerate, her own father.
The situation is more touching yet -- a child coming intro Trish's life -- because she has just undergone a miscarriage, and her boyfriend isn't even around to lend her emotional support. And that was a pregnancy she'd been ambivalent about, to boot.
The book is rife (in a good way) with parent-child scenarios. One of the saddest involves the young man who murdered David's mom more out of frustration than evil intent. (the young man had been her grade school or jr. high student; she had seen good in him despite his dysfunctional family and economic poverty. But she had grown to fear him as he got into his older teen years, because of his family's criminal associations and his shady activities).
But in the end, he conforms to his family's dysfunction. Sad, sad scene where he confides his crimes to his hospitalized, supposedly unconscious grandma (who had raised him). Turns out, though, she was conscious durign his confession. So he ends up trying to suffocate her to prevent her from testifying against him, or holding any leverage at all over him.
It's also sad, sad, that when his attempt to kill the grandma gets him into jail ... the grandma then carries on with her own life, in a fashion as cold-blooded as how the grandson had attacked her.
This is the rare Trish McGuire mystery in which the particular legal case she is working on for her job is so secondary that the reader never learns all the case's details, nor its precise outcome (as far as I can remember, that is, as I'm writing this summary a couple months after my reading).
And yet the legal case is significant, because it's about the first time that Anthony, a senior lawyer in her firm, is willing to test her in a high-stakes civil case. (She's trying to leave behind the draining family-court cases of her early career, in which she usually represented harmed children).
I am in awe of author Cooper for creating the character of Trish Maguire, who demonstrates both common humanity and uncommon perceptivity/compassion/imagination/logic/self-control and almost any other virtue you can think of. Trish is so compelling to me precisely because she is NOT perfect.
This is a vital installment in Trish's saga. It shows how she comes to take in her half-brother, young schoolboy David, after the violent murder of his mother (who is not Trish's mother).
David is not only traumatized, but trying to hold true to his mother's caution -- not to give details of their past -- such that Trish has to unravel not only why the mom was killed, but why David is acting as he is.
In the course of this task, Trish comes to suspect, and then exonerate, her own father.
The situation is more touching yet -- a child coming intro Trish's life -- because she has just undergone a miscarriage, and her boyfriend isn't even around to lend her emotional support. And that was a pregnancy she'd been ambivalent about, to boot.
The book is rife (in a good way) with parent-child scenarios. One of the saddest involves the young man who murdered David's mom more out of frustration than evil intent. (the young man had been her grade school or jr. high student; she had seen good in him despite his dysfunctional family and economic poverty. But she had grown to fear him as he got into his older teen years, because of his family's criminal associations and his shady activities).
But in the end, he conforms to his family's dysfunction. Sad, sad scene where he confides his crimes to his hospitalized, supposedly unconscious grandma (who had raised him). Turns out, though, she was conscious durign his confession. So he ends up trying to suffocate her to prevent her from testifying against him, or holding any leverage at all over him.
It's also sad, sad, that when his attempt to kill the grandma gets him into jail ... the grandma then carries on with her own life, in a fashion as cold-blooded as how the grandson had attacked her.
This is the rare Trish McGuire mystery in which the particular legal case she is working on for her job is so secondary that the reader never learns all the case's details, nor its precise outcome (as far as I can remember, that is, as I'm writing this summary a couple months after my reading).
And yet the legal case is significant, because it's about the first time that Anthony, a senior lawyer in her firm, is willing to test her in a high-stakes civil case. (She's trying to leave behind the draining family-court cases of her early career, in which she usually represented harmed children).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 21, 2009
This is my second foray into the Trish Maguire mysteries and I felt this one dragged on a little. The beginning and middle were hard to get through, but the end was pretty good. All and all, rather average.
January 18, 2017
Not that much of a mystery, but I enjoyed the writing style and the characters. A bit different because it's not written from the police angle. Would like to read more by this author.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews