Dark Psychological Thriller

Gallagher, Dianne. Too Dark to Sleep. Brayer Publishing LLC: 11/19/2012. Available in softcover and digital formats.

Maggie Quinn is a strong, complex character. A former Chicago detective pushing hard to solve a case, although she has had to turn in her gun and shield. Quinn has lost everything: her job, her daughter, her self-image and perhaps even her sanity. She is struggling against the downward spiral of depression and an irrational fear of shadows and darkness.

Hot, dark, and metallic tasting -- someone --in the dark -- is tearing out the hearts of victims and leaving them in pools of blood. Hired as a consultant by the Chicago Police Department, Quinn goes to work with her ex-partner, on the case of the serial killer that cost her everything.

Too Dark to Sleep is hard-core, psychologically tense, crime fiction with an unpredictable plot. The suspense is hair-raising. Danger is around every corner, in each shadow that pulls the reader forward and makes Quinn, the former top detective of Violent Crimes, untrusting of her witness’s statement, her fellow officers, and even herself.


Too Dark to Sleep has shades of Mickey Spillane and other broken investigators who take the reader for a quick spin in a fast car. The dark is every much a character as the people who work with or against the solving of crimes.

An intense read that will leave the reader panting and wanting more. Do not start reading at bedtime, because one will have to read all night. No matter when one starts, expect to be cautious of dark shadows that creep up from behind and try to pull one into the darkness.

Gallagher was raised in Minnesota. She completed a Bachelor Degree in Fine Arts, concentrating on theater, eventually focusing on playwriting. Since she has lived and worked in Los Angeles and Chicago.

"A move to the Chicago area translated into a new focus on novels as well as a love for the big-shouldered city. Dianne edited, critiqued and ghosted a variety of fiction and nonfiction pieces while having great fun with her family. As projects she worked on were placed with agencies like Writers House, Dianne decided to start writing for herself. The result is the debut novel, Too Dark to Sleep."

A Study Atonement, Confession, Revenge, and Evil

Fox LA Interview July 26, 2012

La Salle, Eriq. Laws of Depravity (Martyr Maker Series). Create Space: 2012. ISBN: 1-4775-8211-8 (p) $15.00 ISBN-13: 9781477582114 (e) $3.99

Father O’Conner, found flayed in his office by the janitor, brings Detectives Quincy Cavanaugh and Tavares “Phee” Freeman to the scene of the brutal slaying. They follow the corpse to the city morgue. There they discover FBI Agent Janet Maclin who hopes to relate this murder to The Martyr Maker. This serial killer is Maclin’s only open case.

 Over a period of thirty years, thirty-six priests and preachers have been murdered in ways reminiscent of the martyrdom of Jesus and twelve of the major and minor apostles, twelve murders every ten years.

Dr. Kravitz, New York City’s chief coroner, following Maclin’s direction, finds a plastic capsule in O’Conner’s stomach containing a rolled up piece of paper with a passage of scripture written on it, confirming the perpetrator’s MO. Maclin, Quincy and Phee now work together in this police 

procedural trying to get ahead of a killer that is now threatening the clergy of New York City.

Coming from diverse backgrounds each individual peopling this book is flawed and complex. Each character deals with the evil in his or her background, as well as its cost on the present, in different ways. The depth of the story and its expected and unexpected twists and turns, makes for a highly enjoyable read.

La Salle spent two years at the Juilliard School’s Drama Division. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Best-known as Dr. Benton in the television drama ER, La Salle has acted on and off Broadway and in films. He has produced, directed and written screenplays. Laws of Depravity is his first novel.

Drawing on his years of experience in storytelling on the stage, television, and movies, this novel is highly visual and visceral. This is a “modern day parable cleverly masquerading as a crime novel:” a study of atonement, confession, revenge, and evil. Its characters are multi-layered bringing depth and vivid reality to this police procedural.

Each must confront not only with the depravity of a twisted mind, but also the defeated or suppressed depravities that have shaped their own lives and families, that have made them who they are. The reader is in for a page-turning experience that leaves supper dishes undone and creates bleary-eyed days at the office.