Dark Places

Lisa Arsenault is a high-school English teacher who is involved in
several ministry campaigns to increase literacy.

This gripping page-turner combines elements of an old-fashioned,
traditional whodunit with cutting-edge computer technology.

Paul is a thoroughly modern hero. A Canadian in his late 20s, he is a
hotshot computer programmer, recognized in his field for his expertise.
He also represents a growing segment of the travel industry: adventure
vacationers. He treks in inaccessible, often inhospitable, corners of
the world, climbing mountains and traversing deserts.

While mountain climbing in Nepal he stumbles over a dead body,
obviously murdered, with two Swiss Army knives protruding from its eyes.
The Nepali police call it a suicide and close the case. Paul is spurred
to action because of this injustice, and because a close friend had been
killed and mutilated in the same way in Africa two years before. Paul
uses the Internet to access information on serial killers, then tracks
down a secret group that specializes in devising serial murders for
kicks.

We follow Paul as he homes in on this group of psychopaths, and share
his fear when they become aware of him and the hunter becomes the
hunted. We see everything through his eyes, as the novel is written in
the first person. Fast-paced and set in several exotic locales, it
follows the peripatetic hero through exciting and often scarifying
adventures in pursuit of a killer all over the world. There are lots of
plot twists and turns, and the occasional skilfully interwoven red
herring. Dialogue rings true, and lots of computer jargon adds
verisimilitude. (The crime is actually solved by tracking the murderer
through his postings.) Add to all this vignettes of the lifestyles of
“beautiful young people” and you have a recipe for a great murder
mystery.