If you’re looking for an easy summer read, Cornelia Read’s debut novel, A Field of Darkness is NOT the book for you. If, however, you’re interested in a thriller with substance, a dark yet compelling story that is intelligent and intense, then this may be the novel for you. It’s by no means an easy read, but it is smart and even its harshness enriches the themes found within its pages. A Field of Darkness is a mystery thriller set in 1988 written in what the author calls WASP noir. The protagonist, Madeline Dare, is from money “so old that it’s gone.” Her family has deep roots and looks upon itself almost as aristocracy, replete with the privileges of having occupied the same space for a long time. Madeline is someone who both wants to break from her family and its behaviors and who still has an intense loyalty and fierce protectiveness toward it. It is this conflict that opens the mystery of the novel. She is told about the grisly murder of two girls that took place in 1969. One of her in-laws tosses her dog tags that he found at the scene of the murder, but never turned in. She immediately recognizes the name on them—that of her favorite cousin, Lapthorne. She sets out to prove that he is innocent, but her investigations lead invariably to more murders as she gets a little too close to the truth. It’s a book that explores such themes as isolation, loyalty, and finding one’s individuality apart from one’s family and upbringing. Read also explores place and how it affects us as people. Madeline tells us in the opening lines of the book that she is not one of those people who can be happy anywhere. Place matters to her, much as it matters to her blue-blooded family. Madeline is an interesting heroine—one who is deeply flawed yet very likable and very appealing. She has few illusions about herself and what ones she does have end up getting stripped away during the course of the novel. While she is trying to solve the murder, she isn’t exactly the most law-abiding person. A fledgling journalist who has yet to get a big assignment, she blurs the lines between legality and illegality. She withholds information from the police—information that might have helped prevent at least one murder, possibly more. She has been a casual drug user in the past and is present during a fair amount of cocaine use—use that resonates with the 80s and the brat pack culture. There are times when it felt like her withholding of information was less about protecting her cousin and family and more about protecting the progression of the plot. After all, if you hand too much information to the police, the story leaves the pages and falls into the hands of people whom we haven't met and ties the hands of the protagonist. However, it's not something that can be sustained for very long while maintaining credibility. Madeline's actions stretched the suspension of disbelief, but didn't break it. Perhaps Read’s greatest strength is in her use of the language. She delights in making her words dance as they perform the ballet of storytelling. Her pages are rich with imagery and every sentence performs multiple roles in mood setting, plot pushing, and character revelation. But while her greatest strength is in the way she makes her words sing, she also has a knack for creating interesting characters who each have their own voice and motivation. They’re characters who are deeply developed and have detailed pasts which influence their present-day behaviors. Read weaves complex relationships between all of her characters—not just between the protagonist and everyone else. Many of the characters are distasteful. There were times when I found it difficult to sympathize with some of their characters because they behaved in ways I thought was foolish or despicable. However, this is something that contributed to the suspense of the novel as there were many potential suspects, all of whom presented a very real and immediate danger to Madeline and those around her. A Field of Darkness is Read’s first novel. Published in hardcover by Mysterious Press, it has met with immediate critical acclaim. Kirkus Reviews and the New York Times both gave it favorable reviews. Kirkus said it was one of the top ten thrillers to be published in 2006. Author Lee Child called it “one of the best debuts I’ve ever seen” and invited her to tour with him after the book came out. Such warm reception bodes well for the possibility of seeing more Madeline Dare books in the future. Disclosure: Cornelia Read is a former member of Epinions and in the acknowledgements page, she gives credit to “Everyone at Epinions.com, who saw me through the darkest hours and gave me my writing chops back.” She lists 40 Epinions members who were on her trust list, including myself. I also interviewed her about this book for Book Help Web.
Madeline (Maddie) Dare is a journalist for a local New York State paper and she gets involved in an unsolved murder murder that occurred in the area a decade previously. Two girls were found in cornfield with their throats cut and each wearing a crown made of roses. There had been a State Fair being held at the time, and the girls had been seen with soldiers during the evening, but no identification had ever been made. Maddie’s father-in-law mentions the crime and the fact that he had found a set of dog-tags in the field. When Maddie is shown the tags she is shocked to see they are in the name of her favourite cousin, the wealthy and devastatingly handsome, Lapthorne Townsend. She sets out to prove that this all round nice guy, who she once lusted after, can’t possibly be a murderer.Maddie is an ex-debutant and is originally from Long Island. She is descended from WASP ‘old money’ she quips that her money is so old that there is none left. Her father is now smoking pot in California and her mother lives on pork and beans with her new husband. Maddie falls in love with a common railway worker, Dean, and while he is off working on the railway line and trying to invent a machine that will make a lot of linesmen redundant, Maddie works on the local Newspaper. Maddie hates living in Syracuse, it is a constant reminder of her drop in lifestyle. She spends half the time hating her ‘trailer-trash’ neighbours and the rest of the time feeling guilty for thinking that way and being part of a family that made their wealth at the expense of these people.You do not need to be a rocket scientist to enjoy this book. To me it is Chick lit disguised as a Whodunit, but is being widely promoted as crime fiction. A FIELD OF DARKNESS is a debut novel for Cornelia Read, and is a 2007 Edgar Award nominee for best Debut crime novel. Maddie is a smart, loyal and wisecracking character, I’m not sure there is any depth to her, but there is room for growth. Some of the other characters seem to be less flesh and blood people and more caricatures, so much so, that I often felt that the author was using the book to make several social statements. I do not think it is an award winning read, in fact it is average at best. I loved the map at the front of the book – not come from the USA -it was nice to see where New York State is compared to New York City. I do like maps and character lists at the front of books – so few authors do it. The biggest annoyance for me in the book was the foul language, it really put me off – I felt that it it was in their for shock value rather than being integral to the plot. Give this book a try, you may like it, many people have, I am just not one of them.
Do You like book A Field Of Darkness (2007)?
"Voice" seems to be the quality that writers most strive for these days, to the point of going way over the top. Cornelia Read's amateur detective Madeline Dare is exhibit A in this regard -- her first-person voice in "Field of Darkness" is sometimes clever and even lyrical, but this constant straining for a bon-mot or scintillating simile is ultimately irritating and exhausting for the reader, at least this one. Instead of being carried away by the flow, I was constantly stopping to either admire or grind my teeth over the latest masterpiece of a sentence, to the detriment of forgetting myself in characters and plot. As Gertrude said to Polonius, "More matter, with less art." The frustrating thing is that by pulling back just a tad, Read could've pulled it off. I might try another one of her books to see if she's gotten over her "I want to prove I'm the smartest girl in the class" complex, because she definitely has a gift for dialogue and characterization. I did suspect the outcome, but she will probably improve on that front as well.Back to the issue of uber-cuteness in language, my review is probably affected by the fact that I just read "The Condition" by Jennifer Haigh, which is written so beautifully and simply that you're carried along without any awareness of the talent behind the curtain; and that I am listening to another book with a hyper narrator, "Special topics in calamity physics" by Marissa Pessl. Like Read, Pessl is a first-time author, so it may be that this is simply a novice's way of trying to impress. Once they stop trying to wow the reader with every syllable, they could write very enjoyable books.
—Heidi
I was tempted to label this as romantic suspense, but Cornelia Read would probably slap me and so might you. The developing couple-relationship isn't really the core of the book or the series, but the romance that's there is believable, effective, and begs for an HEA. I'm not saying there is an HEA, mind you. Just that you're going to want one. This is the first of a series featuring one of the most original female characters I've come across in a while: snarky, trash-mouthed debutante Madeline Dare, whose ancestors were Old Money and whose hippy-esque parents managed to dispose of the family fortune before Madeline came along. Which makes her a working-class chick with useless society skills, a dark sense of humor and the mouth of a longshoreman. She's someone I'd like to have a beer with, and I don't even like beer. The second in the series, The Crazy School, is even better than Field of Darkness. The third book, Field of Darkness, is a major change of pace for which I am pre-removing a ton o' spoilers. Did you like Tami Hoag's Elena Estes? You know, the noir detective who snarked her way through Dark Horse and The Alibi Man? Then I think you're going to like Madeline Dare, as well. They're not the same women by any means, but they're both working women who grew up rich but aren't now. They have dark back-stories, self-effacing attitudes, and an ability to get through the tough times with wit as well as their wits.
—Susan (the other Susan)
I have so much bias about this book it isn't even funny. But that doesn't stop it from being well written and gripping.First, it's set in Syracuse, NY. Not quite my home town, but close enough. And this book made me see Syracuse through very different eyes. That Madeline Dare both hates and it doesn't want to leave it--yes, I get that, in spades.Second is the main character herself. She reads like a LOT of girls I knew in my very preppy college, only grown up and married and "trapped" somewhere she never thought she'd end up. Above all, it's a convoluted mystery linking two sisters murdered in 1969 with Madeline's family history, something she doesn't know until a casual remark by her father-in-law sets her on a path to learn the truth. Is her family implicated? Or is someone just trying to make it look that way?Will happily seek out more by this author.
—MB
