The Deepest Black
A Novel
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
A crime novel unlike any you've ever read—based on true events
Where does the line blur between fact and fiction?
Acclaimed author Randall Silvis is looking for a story—any story to follow up the series of gripping mystery novels that catapulted him to success. And then, out of nowhere, a story appears. A mysterious stranger named Thomas Kennaday tips Silvis off about a series of murders in a small Pennsylvania town, sending Silvis off on a tentative investigation in hopes of finding material for his next novel.
What Silvis discovers is much more than a typical small-town murder case, and it soon becomes clear that Kennaday, who seems to have disappeared into thin air, is somehow pulling the strings of the investigation from behind the scenes. Based on true events, The Deepest Black is a profoundly thoughtful, unsettling read, and a crime novel unlike any you've ever read before.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Silvis (the Ryan DeMarco series) serves as his own protagonist in this frustrating standalone. Silvis, who lives in Pennsylvania's rural Mercer County, is in search of a subject for his next book when he's approached by Thomas Kennaday, who provides him with details about a local mystery involving an abandoned baby and the shooting deaths of two adults and a child. When pressed, Kennaday refuses to explain how he seems to know even more about these things than the police do and departs. As Silvis begins to investigate, the mystery becomes less about Baby Doe and the murders than about Kennaday himself. Who is he? How does he know as much as he does, including details of future events? How is he able to predict what Silvis will do before Silvis does it? What starts out as a conventional mystery swerves into paranormal territory with references to conspiracy theories, inexplicable events, fringe science, New Age spirituality, and lengthy speculations about other realities. Such topics do little to enhance the plot. This weird novel is unlikely to win Silvis new fans.