You'll Be Left in the Darkness

Summary from Goodreads

Is there a past too awful for even God to forgive? The Dinah Harris mystery series continues....
Angus Whitehall's past never really died....it just stubbornly waited for vengeance. A killer has settled into his small rural community, and no one suspects that the local pastor knows much more than he can say. Crippled by the devastating choices of his youth, Angus watches as those he led astray are methodically punished by someone from their violent, racist past. Unable to forgive himself, now the secrets he has kept are slowly poisoning the family whom he dearly loves. As the devastating consequences of his silence are revealed, former FBI agent Dinah Harris must step outside of the lonely isolation that cocoons her, before she can trap a killer and find peace with herself in the depths of God's mercy. 

My Review:

This was the first time I read a Dinah Harris mystery novel and I didn't know what to expect when picking it up.  The opening question here was enough to get my attention.  Clearly, it was going to be a crime so sinister one would wonder if they could ever be forgiven, even by God.  Sadly, Cave didn't wow me with this book and I don't know if I'll pick up another one from the series.  I rated this book 3 out of 5 stars because there wasn't much to the characters or plot.

Angus Whitehall's past we see in the prologue, though we don't know he's a part of it at the time.  Cave didn't leave me hanging for long in the book as I continued reading and could tell that he was a part of the crime.  But almost twenty years later, his secret is still hidden.  It was hard to believe that he was able to get away for so long without people finding out the truth.  Cave wrote him as a nasty man, a priest at that, to the detectives trying to solve the case.  There wasn't one part of the story where I could find anything redeeming about it.  Much like the other characters in the book, there was no character to them or a reason to even like them.

All we kept reading about was Angus having a secret.  Angus keeping the secret.  Angus afraid of the secrets coming out.  I was sick of hearing him worrying about the secrets and wanted them out in the open about the third time he thought and feared they would come out.  He was a priest and should've come clean from the beginning.

The only part of this book I found interesting read was the sub-plot of Chloe.  Cave traveled down a path most teenagers go down nowadays, especially with bullying.  Though it was a sad outcome, Cave showed how far bullying can hurt someone.  However, I didn't find it pleasing to see that Cave thought the one bullying deserved to be forgiven and used her home-life as an excuse for what she did.  Same with Angus and his past.  Used his home-life as a way out for what he did.  As someone who's been a victim of bullying when I was in school, I never would give the bullies slack because of what they were going through at home.  What I cared about was the fact that I was being hurt on a daily basis.  In this book, Cave let Jennifer, the high school bully, seem like it was alright because she was treated horribly by her father back home.  She cost someone else their life, but Cave sees it as a way to let the bully's story to be known so people could have sympathy.  That alone made me dislike the book.  I don't give sympathy to anyone who is a bully.

And this is a Dinah Harris mystery.  Then why do I feel like I hardly read about her in the book?  Yes, she helped Elise on the case but that was it.  I didn't find her to be a major character in the book.  It just felt all lost to me.  So much was going on, it was hard to even follow at times. 

I was given this book as a giveaway from goodreads and I really wouldn't recommend it to anyone.