Tessa Lowell was eight years old when she reported seeing Lori Cawley’s murderer, evidence that helped put Wyatt Stokes in prison as the Ohio River Monster, a serial killer whose victims are young women from whom the monster not
only steals life but a piece of jewelry as a trophy.
Ten years later, Tessa returns to Fayette, Pennsylvania, from Florida—where she has been living with her grandmother—to visit her dying father in prison. While in Fayette, another girl is abducted and murdered. With the death of Ariel Kouchinsky, ugly childhood memories flame to life, and guilt and doubt again haunt Tessa. Traumatized by her past, a past that includes a father jailed for armed robbery, a run-away sister, and a mother who has abandoned her, Tessa suffers from an avoidant personality and is unable to form meaningful relationships.
Hoping to put to rest the ten-year nightmare that she helped to put an innocent man in prison, Tessa begins digging for clues, clues that uncover a plethora of suspects: Danny Denzing, Joslyn’s ex-boyfriend who gets mixed up with drugs; Mike and Tommy Faber, meth dealers involved in a lab house explosion; Daryl Kouchinsky, a man with a history of domestic abuse and other acts of violence; a suspicious looking man claiming to search for a lost cat; and her own sister Joslin, who had a heated argument with Lori the night of her abduction and whom Tessa has been protecting with her silence: “I was terrified of her being taken away from me. I thought she’d go to jail for lying to the police. I had to keep her secret” (63). What Tessa discovers not only has the potential to get her killed but surprises the reader in a shocking ending. Tessa realizes that time doesn’t heal all wounds. In fact, time can arm us with enough anger to self-destruct and to feed a desire for revenge.
With an allusion to Dante’s Inferno in its title, The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas suggests that we all have secrets hidden away, in the deepest, darkest corners of our minds: “Some people wear their violence like weights around their neck. . . . There are people who like to hurt, and then there are people who just need a reason to” (182-183), who get a perverse pleasure out of harming nice girls.
Thomas’ book also implies that we can defeat fear, sorrow, and doubt by confronting them. Tessa, who has invented armor to protect herself from guilt, has to dig deep to find the courage, strength, and honor to set right her past wrongs, to undo her link to a family of liars, and to discover her true identity. Determined not to remain neutral in a time of moral crisis, Tessa realizes she must fight the darkness.
- Posted by Donna