Here in the Dark
A Novel
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4.5 • 4 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A dark and stylish novel of psychological suspense about a young theater critic drawn into a dangerous game that blurs the lines between reality and performance
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2023: Bustle, Nylon, Chicago Review of Books, Entertainment Weekly, Zibby Mag, CrimeReads and more!
Vivian Parry likes the dark. A former actress, she now works as the junior theater critic at a major Manhattan magazine. Her nights are spent beyond the lights, in a reserved seat, giving herself over to the shows she loves. By day, she savages them, with words sharper than a knife.
Angling for a promotion, she reluctantly agrees to an interview, a conversation that reveals secrets she thought she had long since buried. Then her interviewer disappears and she learns―from his devastated fiancée―that she was the last person to have seen him alive. When the police refuse to investigate, Vivian does what she promised herself she would never do again: she plays a part. Assuming the role of amateur detective, she turns her critical gaze toward an unsanitary private eye, a sketchy internet startup, a threatening financier, fake blood, and one very real corpse. As she nears the final act, she finds that the boundaries between theater and the real world are more tenuous and more dangerous than even she could have believed. . .
Gripping, propulsive, and shot through with menace and dark glamor, Alexis Soloski’s Here in the Dark takes us behind the scenes of New York theater, lifting the curtain on the lies we tell ourselves and each other.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An acid-tongued New York City theater critic investigates a stranger's disappearance in Soloski's uneven debut. Vivian Parry quit acting after her mother's death triggered a downward spiral that led to a drug overdose. Now a junior theater critic at a Manhattan magazine, Vivian mimics the functions of a healthy person by day so she can lose herself in a new play every night. When graduate student David Adler asks to interview Vivian for his thesis in exchange for a spot on a panel he's organizing at a prestigious conference, she agrees; the exposure could land her a promotion. She ends the interview abruptly, however, after David's questions take a pointed and personal turn. Weeks later, David's fiancée calls, claiming Vivian was the last person to see him before he vanished. A little digging reveals that David's promised panel never existed. Vivian embarks on a sex-and-substance-fueled quest to locate David and suss out his motives for contacting her, leading her to cross paths with a private investigator and a sketchy online gambling startup. Though Vivian's self-destructive tendencies and jaundiced first-person narrative nod at noir, Soloski's plot and characters lack nuance and authenticity. Theatergoers may appreciate Vivian's copious references to classic plays, but crime fiction fans are likely to be left wanting.
