Thriller set in small town America (where all is not as it seems…) plus Q&A with the author, Rod Reynolds

  • Book: The Dark Inside
  • Location: Arkansas, Texas
  • Author: Rod Reynolds

Review Author: tripfiction

Location

Content

It must be fate… The Dark Inside is the third US based debut novel by a British writer that I have read in the past few months. Why the fascination? The other two were the excellent The Killing of Bobbi Lomax by Cal Moriarty and the equally excellent The Last Pilot by Benjamin Johncock. If the standard were to be kept up I would be in for a treat – and I was.

IMG_1594‘I arrived in town four days after the latest killings. Tall pines lined the road in. They only petered out the last mile, where the Texas-Pacific line ran parallel to the blacktop, gunmetal rails running off into the distance. A sign at the town limits read TEXARKANA, USA IS TWICE AS NICE. A dog cocked its leg and took a piss against it as I passed’. The words of disgraced New York journalist Charlie Yates as he drives into town to investigate the horrific murders of courting couples – each in  a car on a Saturday night in a secluded ‘lovers’ lane’. Charlie does not remotely wish to be in Texarkana on the Texas / Arkansas border (almost anywhere else on earth would be preferable), the assignment is punishment for falling out with his editor. He works out of the local newspaper offices where he is not exactly made welcome by the local editor and staff. Texarkana is a strange place where the paper prints what it is told to print by the local police department, and where corruption and hidden influence is rife. Not the place for an essentially honest reporter – and Charlie soon makes enemies. He works with the sister of a girl who just survived the first attack (but is now traumatised in hospital) to try and get to the bottom of what is happening – and to prevent more murders. The Dark Inside is a real page-turner with thrills a plenty as the story progresses. I patted myself on the back for spotting the murderer about 100 pages from the end but the final denouement was far more complex and clever than I had expected it to be. A really well thought through and well constructed plot…

The copy of The Dark Inside that I read had a flash on the cover telling me that the book was ‘For Fans of True Detective’. This really drew me in… (as indeed did the excellent cover itself). True Detective (especially Series 1 with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson set in Louisiana)  is quite brilliant television. But a lot depends on the relationships, at times somewhat complex, and on the crisp dialogue between the two sets of detectives. That is hard to reproduce in a novel – and I don’t think Reynolds actually tries that hard at characterisation. He is content with the pace and excitement of the book. [Incidentally Nic Pizzolatto, who created True Detective originally saw the work as a novel before it developed into a television series]. This is not meant as a serious criticism, and I can absolutely see The Dark Inside as a major film in the True Detective genre…

The book is, incidentally, loosely based on fact. 1946 saw the Texarkana Moonlight Murders in which a killer nicknamed the ‘Phantom Slayer’ killed courting couple as three weekly intervals on a Saturday night. He was never caught…

The Dark Inside is a truly impressive first US based novel from a new British writer. I am sure we will hear more of Rod Reynolds.

This review first appeared on our blog where Rod takes part in our QA

Back to book

Sign up to receive our e-newsletter

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.