A Dark Time by Dennis E. Bradford
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Time Taken To Read - 2 days

Blurb From Goodreads

A college student vanishes. Her worried grandfather asks one of her favorite professors, Max Stephansson, to solve the mystery. What Max discovers is tragic. The suspense surrounding her disappearance unfolds to yield insight, but at the cost of danger and death.

My Review

A wealthy locals granddaughter goes missing and in his distress the grandfather asks her old college professor to investigate. The hunt for the girl reveals murder, sadness, secrets and new friendships to which all come at a cost.

To be honest my main issue was why on earth would you ask a professor that teaches humanities who once taught her class to investigate? (To be fair the professor does ask this question himself but still). He has no experience in this kind of thing yet has access to things you wouldn't expect from an academic professor and he does a great job for his first stab at an investigation.

The format of the book was off putting although sadly this is how the place it was printed from does the layout, after the first 5 chapters though I did get used to it. The writing itself isn't what I am used to and quite different from my usual authors but still very readable, you can tell he has put a lot of effort and thought into his characters and the plot.

It sadly just wasn't for me and the pace of the book changed a bit but was mostly slow going and building up which some people love but it isn't for me. It started off well and a murder before the first 50 pages is really good going but the book then took a different turn so that it almost felt like two different stories (the professor and a new relationship). Also near the end I found one of the characters to be vile, disgusting and a sexual deviant which made for very uncomfortable reading and there isn't any warning until you happen upon it.

All in all I think this will make for a great read for people who like to read about an academic hero with some intellectual discussions spotted through the book and a few twists and turns. I would try this author again but this time for this book it is a 2/5 for me. Thank you so much to the author for giving me the chance to read his work and for the bonus thrown into the book. A free consultation worth $300 so that itself you might fancy a wee look into. For more information please check out his site http://dennis-bradford.com/

 Thank you Lainy for passing this on to me.  I put it off for some weeks, something about it didn't appeal, and it gets only 4/10 from me, which is about the same as your score!

One of the things that put me off was that a couple of pages offered a telephone "consultation" with the author, who apparently, if you have a problem, will tell you what he would do in your shoes.  A form of advertising which I can't say I like, but as it comes before the story starts, and has absolutely nothing to do with it, could be confusing to some, as it was for me.  Cover has nothing to do with the story whatsoever, and somehow I did feel the author had an ulterior motive for writing the book although I could not work out what it was (sorry).

I'll not encourage anyone to seek this out, and if I had paid for it myself, or swapped for it, I would not have finished it.  I am not usually this negative, but this is a story often repeated, and is the meat of TV movies and detective series.  My views are much the same as Lainy's, except that I would not read another by this author.