Too Dark to Sleep

by Dianne Gallagher

Overview

What if you lost everything?

Maggie Quinn has nothing left. Raised by a father who was a “troubleshooter” for the Outfit, she has an ironically solid foundation as a Violent Crimes detective for the Chicago Police. With the highest solve rate in the city, she’s also the best person to unravel a recent string of strangulations. But nothing prepares Maggie Quinn for the death of her only child, loss of her job and the darkness that follows.

Quinn now lives with the dark — an intimate, stalking darkness. And, she carries a relentless need to catch the one person she knows committed these gruesome murders. But did he really do it? Or is Quinn’s tormented mind pushing her to ruin the life of an innocent man?

This is not a dream and there are no rules.

Note from the publisher:

Too Dark to Sleep is a gritty, character-driven crime fiction novel set in modern day Chicago. Three years in the making, it is a mature work that combines elements of a traditional psychological thriller with an entirely original protagonist, Maggie Quinn.

Maggie was the top homicide detective in Chicago’s Area One before a devastating loss. Now struggling through personal demons to face each day, Quinn becomes obsessed with solving her last case for the department that now bars her from wearing a badge.

Avid readers of crime fiction, noir or psychological thrillers will find Too Dark to Sleep a fresh take on their favorite genre. This is the first book in a gripping new series and not to be missed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780985954109
Publisher:	Brayer Publishing, LLC
Publication date:	10/01/2012
Pages:	390
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.87(d)

Editorial Reviews

Gallagher's densely layered murder mystery is part police procedural and part psychological thriller—a combination that unfortunately slows the book's pacing to a grisly crawl. Maggie Quinn, a disgraced Chicago homicide detective, gets pulled back into the pursuit of a serial killer she was chasing before her young daughter died and her world fell apart. From her luxurious townhouse, courtesy of an appropriately slimy ex-husband, Quinn recuperates from a suicide attempt and visits her imprisoned father, who happens to be able to pull strings within the corrupt Chicago Police Department. Called in as a consultant to the homicide squad, Quinn battles her psychic demons—expressed as a physical manifestation of darkness—as she pursues a killer whose chilly and chilling character is the focus of some of the book's best writing. While Gallagher takes some genuine risks, such as killing off a particularly sympathetic character, she lards on subplots that are not fully explained and come too slowly to help move the plot forward. The courtroom theatrics at the end are implausible and the resolution is, like much of the writing, overwrought and unsatisfying.

Publishers Weekly

In Gallagher's noirish crime novel, a former detective tries to help the Chicago Police Department stop a string of grisly murders. Maggie Quinn, a strong but vulnerable and mentally unstable ex-cop devastated by the death of her young daughter, comes back as a consultant to help catch the serial killer responsible for the murders of young women. The murderer strangles, slices open and literally disheartens his victims with surgical skill. It's more howcatchim than whodunit; the rich, well-connected main culprit becomes identifiable early on, and the rest of the book dedicates itself to Quinn and her colleagues' increasingly desperate efforts to pin the crimes on the arrogant, narcissistic but careful killer. Haunted by recurring nightmares, Quinn engages in an increasingly tense cat-and-mouse game with her prime suspect. In terse narrative and crisp dialogue, Gallagher sketches the city's notorious corruption as well as cop culture in general. Virtually everyone is on the take, from newspapers to politicians to Quinn's own father, doing time as a fall guy for the Chicago mob. Like the killer, they're all crooked and crazy, just a little less so. Told from a woman's perspective, the majority of the men come across as idiotic, evil, arrogant or some combination thereof, and women don't fare much better. Trying to bring in the murderer, Quinn battles fellow cops and the city bureaucracy as much as external forces. "You think killers have no mercy, just try working with a bunch of twenty-year dicks," she advises the rookie detective she's helping with the case. The book fairly suppurates with repulsive sights and smells, as investigators, aka lab rats, collect specimens and samples, and medical examiners conduct autopsies. Despite a cliché or two, a double negative, a typo here and there, and an unconvincing hospital search scene, this tautly written but richly detailed novel contains many finely wrought passages and adept portrayals of minor as well as major characters and the city itself. To her credit, Gallagher avoids the typical Hollywood happy ending. A darkly ominous crime thriller that takes readers on a nightmarish tour of Chicago's seamy side.

Kirkus Reviews