It is decided that Billy is the one with the heart and best suited to taking over the family's small town newspaper in Port Alma, Maine. Cal predictably takes his sense of reasoned order to law school and returns to the small town to work in the District Attorney's office.

The very first paragraph of Places in the Dark is captivating with its imagery. Always beautiful and lyrical, it is sometimes savage. The author often uses the small and insignificant happenings of an eventless day to foreshadow or fill out the many layers of his characters. His style is literate, and he employs the technique of flashbacks to set his stage and then later to advance the plot.

Through a brief flashback, we meet Dora March when she is eight years old. Early on, it becomes obvious that this novel is building into psychological suspense with the author visiting the dark places of his character's hearts and minds.

Late one night in 1937, Dora March steps off the bus in Port Alma, Maine, with one suitcase in hand and checks into the town's only hotel. She finds work caring for an elderly curmudgeon who has no living relatives. The town's people know nothing of her past, and more importantly they don't care.

The curmudgeon dies and Billy meets and falls in love with Dora. He hires her at the newspaper and sets about winning her, as he has always known that he will have only one truly passionate love in his life. It appears to be his undoing as he is found murdered in her cottage and she has left town.

Cal is driven to find Dora. In his search for clues about her and where she might be, he stoically, and patiently starts recreating the one year of her life that she spent in Port Alma.

His journey takes unexpected twists and turns and regardless of how many mysteries read, my prediction is that readers will not see this one coming. It takes an especially skilled writer to flip from past to present as artfully as Thomas Cook does, demonstrating no doubt, why his books have won Edgar awards. Places in the Dark is a mystery that will be hard to forget.

--Thea Davis