Dark Places

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 336 pages
• Published by: Harper Paperbacks May 25, 2004
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0060594233
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0060594237
• Book Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Weighs: 9.9 ounces

From Publishers Weekly
In this haunting suspense debut, Evans takes the reader on a page-turning adventure across five continents in search of a gruesome serial killer who has been targeting travelers in Third World nations. Paul Wood, a San Francisco computer programmer and rugged budget backpacker, is hiking in the Himalayas when he stumbles upon a mutilated corpse with a Swiss army knife plunged into each eye. This is a freakish coincidence: Paul discovered the body of his then girlfriend mysteriously murdered in much the same way two years before in remote central Africa. Finding that even more murders seem to fit the eerie pattern, he begins his own investigation with the help of a (poorly developed) Bosnian love interest named Talena. Eventually joined by his backpacking friends from the fateful trip through central Africa, he decides to take justice into his own hands. Entertaining (but totally implausible) plot twists will keep readers guessing through the book's bone-chilling buildup and brutal climax, while slangy, conversational prose will make it easy to fly through the pages. But secondary characters are often flat and unrealistic, and Paul's vigilante bravado and world-traveler cockiness will not be to everyone's taste.
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Product Description


In a place so harsh that survivalis a struggle, one man has found the strength to kill

Paul Wood is a modern vagabond, a man who chooses to leave the comforts of San Francisco to spend months backpacking through some of the world's most challenging terrain: Cameroon, Indonesia, Nepal. While hiking in the Himalayas, Paul gets more of a rush than he bargained for when he finds the body of a murdered hiker, the victim mutilated in a way that Paul has witnessed once before, years ago and thousands of miles away.

To quell a scandal, the police rule the death a suicide and close the case. But Paul can't let it go. A man who has traveled through the thin air at the top of the world and across land mines in war zones, he is not easily discouraged. But his newest expedition will show him some of the darkest places imaginable, in both the terrain he navigates and the men he encounters. Finding the killer becomes Paul's new obsession -- a journey that leads him dangerously close to the edge and maybe over it.

Reader Reviews
The book is about a backpacker who finds a dead body on a trail in Nepal, which has been mutilated in the same way his girlfriend was in Cameroon two years previously. Our hero sets out to find the killer. The book's about much more than that, however. It's about recovering from the death of a loved one. It's about backpacking, and travelling around the world, and needing to do so to the point where you only take jobs that will give you months of leave. It's about the bursting of the Internet bubble. It's about the concept of tribe, a chosen family that is your support network no matter how far away they are. It's about using the Internet to find people and track them down. And, yeah, there's a cool mystery in there, too. Evans captures the feeling of being on the edge of 30, and unwilling to buy into the two-kids-and-a-dog suburban lifestyle.