3 Stars

Leonard Blaylock, an ex-crime reporter spends his days developing discarded rolls of film. He enjoys the little mysteries revealed by these pictures. However, one day, he develops a picture of a woman being murdered. Leonard is shocked. After all, he was a witness to her death years ago. How could she be killed again when her previous death was the reason for the mess in his life? 

What happened to her? Who was she? 

The story comes in the third-person POV of Leonard, Jim, Martha, Caroline, Red, Jackie, Bobby, etc. 

Not all books are read the same way. For some books, we linger on the words. For some, we read casually. For a few others, we increase the pace and read at a higher speed. This book belongs to the last category. 

After the first 10%, I realized I’d enjoy this more if I speed-read it. Once I upped the pace, the story flew by faster and became interesting. I didn’t miss anything either. 

This genre is famous for its unlikeable characters. The book certainly took this seriously. Leonard is a jerk. However, this made it easy to read without feeling any emotional connection with the characters. 

I’m not sure why the full names of the characters had to be used so many times. Even in a limited person, a character would hardly think of another by their first and last names. 

The questions are answered by the end and things are accounted for. There are twists, naturally. But I guessed those, so I wasn’t shocked. At least, the twists weren’t weird or OTT. 

To summarize, The Dark Room is a decent thriller but more enjoyable if you are good at speed reading. Otherwise, it’ll be too slow and uninteresting for the majority of the book. 

Thank you, NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer, for eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. 

#NetGalley #TheDarkRoom