The Familiar Dark, Amy Engel's fast-paced, twisty thriller, follows up her bestselling The Roanoke Girls, and trails Eve, a single mother, on her path of blind revenge to find the murderer of her 12-year-old daughter, Junie. Eve has gotten her life together since becoming Junie's mother as a teenager, and she's distanced herself from her own abusive, poverty-stricken mother. But now that Junie is gone, Eve is left with nothing but the void of her own anger and her determination to punish the killer. As Eve tracks down drug dealers, pedophiles and crooked cops, she begins to wonder just how close to home the murderer might actually be.
The Familiar Dark is impeccably plotted. Despite introducing a hefty cast of shady, violent characters, the narrative's masterful misdirection and ability to build trust and mistrust around specific characters at key moments keeps readers guessing until the novel's final act. The story's true strength, however, is in the cohesion and emotive power of its themes of motherly love, vengeful defiance and female rage. Eve is a new breed of hard-boiled detective, still sporting the hard exterior and haunted past, but this time toughened by love and haunted by what it means to be a strong woman in a powerless situation. The novel digs deep into the gritty, cold undersoil of Eve's hometown, never shying away from the biting realism of sexism and poverty. But it is the shocking moments of tenderness and love these characters show one another that packs the biggest emotional punch and reminds readers where true power resides. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor