A Darkness Absolute (Rockton, #2)

by Kelley Armstrong

[Melanie]

Review originally posted at RabidReads.ca.

After finishing City of the Lost, I was very excited to get back into the world of Rockton. This book takes place not long after the end of the first book. Casey and Will Anders, the other deputy in the small, secretive town, are out looking for a man who fled. Her boss and lover, Sheriff Eric Dalton is out of town on a supply run, so Casey and Will go out looking for them. That is until a blizzard hits. Then they must find shelter.

While hiding out in a cave, they start to hear another person. While searching, they find a woman in a hole. It is a small hole, so small that she can’t lay flat out. This girl, Nicole Chavez, had been missing for over a year. They had found a body wearing her clothes, so she was presumed dead.

So now, Casey, Will and Eric must find out who put her in that hole. They also have to find the missing man. So they decide to enlist the help of the town butcher, who in his real life was psychiatrist who studied psychopaths, sociopaths and people with antisocial personality disorder. While he has a medical degree and a psychology degree, he pretty much refuses to use either, if he can help it. He is willing to talk with Casey about a few things, but refuses to do treatment. Since the brothel owner is a former psychologist, he feels that she should be the one to treat this girl.

I won’t go into much detail, because this whole book is full of spoilery type of things. Just know that Kelley Armstrong really pushes boundaries with this story. There are some really tough subjects that are discussed, but she doesn’t go into any real detail. I loved the addition of Mathias, the butcher/psychiatrist. I really hope to see more of him in the third book.

This book keeps you guessing all the way until the end. If you enjoyed book one, then you will love book two. I would recommend reading book one first. There are parts about the town that are learned in book one that will help you to understand this book.

Narration
Thérèse Plummer continues to nail the narration. There is a lot of French in this book (that is how she got in good with Mathias, who is French and Casey learned it in school, as a good Canadian). I felt she did a really good job with the French (though I will admit that I have no idea if she pronounced stuff correctly or not, but sounded good to me).