cover image Darkhouse

Darkhouse

Alex Barclay. Delacorte Press, $23 (334pp) ISBN 978-0-385-33879-0

A bestseller in the U.K. and Ireland, Irish author Barclay's somewhat predictable debut is unlikely to meet similar success in the States, where it will struggle to stand out among many similarly themed books. Det. Joe Lucchesi has left his position with the NYPD after witnessing a botched rescue attempt that claimed the life of a little girl and her mother. In an effort to recover, Joe, his wife and their teenage son, Shaun, begin a new life in a quiet Irish backwater, but the tranquility is short-lived; Shaun's girlfriend is abducted and murdered in a manner suggesting a link to a serial killer, the local cops suspect Shaun and disdain Joe's help, and clues turn up that point to a connection to Joe's last case with the NYPD. The serviceable writing does little to elevate this above the dozens of other cop vs. grudge-holding serial killer stories.