Tami Hoags' books are well written. Makes the reader want more. Another can't put down reads. ( )

Please note that I gave this book 3.5 stars. However, I rounded it up to 4 stars on Goodreads.

Down the Darkest Road is not my favorite Tami Hoag book and I think the reason why is that because I read the series out of order. I hate doing that. In my defense though I bought this at the bookstore and asked a sales associate if this was the first book in the series because the books are not identified in any way as number 1, 2, or 3. So this is my roundabout way of saying that Barnes and Noble, you are kind of sucking lately.

Even without the book not being read in order though I had a hard time getting into this one. We had so many points of views in this book and I wish that we had just stuck with the mother and detective in this one. Instead we throw in the possible serial rapist/killer along with the mother's daughter and I was tired halfway through. Especially because the serial rapist/killer's points of view were just full of awfulness and generally made me want to shower and check on the locks on my doors.

Down the Darkest Road is number three in the Oak Knoll series. Apparently murderers and serial killers love the place. Serious question though, who the heck keeps living there when it seems like ugly things/people keep settling down there. Same question I always had about people that kept right on living in Sunnydale.

Told in the third person, Down the Darkest Road follows Lauren Lawton and her teenage daughter Leah move to Oak Knoll after dealing with two crippling blows. First, the abduction (and probable murder) of Lauren's older daughter Leslie. Two years later, Lauren's husband Lance (yes they all have L's it drove me crazy while reading) dies and Lauren feels stuck. Moving to Oak Knoll she hopes will give her and Leah a fresh start. However, Lauren quickly realizes that the man she blames for her daughter's abduction has followed them and she decides she will do whatever it takes to take him down.

So we get a little of Linda Hamilton in Terminator Judgement Day and also a heck of a lot of woman who sometimes seems to not have any type of common sense at all with the character of Lauren. As a reader you feel sympathetic to her plight, but once you realize that you kind of had your eyes closed to what was going on (with a reveal that just seemed to happen with no fanfare) you kind of want to smack Lauren upside the head. Or at least I did.

Besides Lauren we also get Leah's perspective in this book and it's pretty apparent she is just as messed up as her mother is and just doesn't know what to do. She has pretty much taken to being the mother in the relationship.

Detective Mendez I really didn't get much of a handle on in this book besides him being old fashioned when it comes to not swearing in front of women and opening doors for them. I know in this case it was because of the fact we already see the guy in books #1 and 2. I just needed a bit more history included in this one about him.

I thought the writing was typical Tami Hoag. She always has a way of turning a phrase or just making you think that the woman has looked into the darkest scariest minds out there. The POV from the serial rapist/killer were just awful. That said, the flow was all over the place. There were too many POVs to track and I wish that we had just either followed Lauren or if we needed more than one POV to just include Leah's perspective too. They were the new characters and I wanted to read more about them. I can see including Martinez's perspective, but maybe cut it down even more. And yes I know I just complained that I didn't get much history from the guy in this book, but there are happy mediums.

The setting of Oak Knoll though it takes place in California really did read as either in the mid-west or east coast to me. I don't know why, it's just the book read as "dark" to me so having it take place in California really didn't work. Or maybe it's because I just finished a Kovac/Liksa book and my brain was set to Minnesota.

The ending came out of nowhere and I may have coughed "bullshit" a few times when I got to it. Because seriously? There is a mention somewhere that can lead some readers to this ending, but you really have to be looking for it. Other than that I was not really blown away by the book. I think the gimmick of it taking place during I believe is 1990 to show how cases got solved prior to DNA testing and FBI profiling is a really cool idea. But, other than that, I really don't see what makes this book different than other mystery novels that take prior to those things being in existence either. I mean I read Sue Grafton novels and those books have all so far taken place in the 1980s. ( )

Down the Darkest Road, by Tami Hoag

I had previously read "Deeper than the Dead" and "Secrets of the Grave" by Tami Hoag, and liked them both though their endings somewhat stretched my imagination... "Down the Darkest Road" was another entertaining if gloomy mystery.
I admit I never knew for certain if the alleged guilty party was guilty or not, there was just that element of doubt, of uncertainty - what if the mother had decided the wrong man was guilty of her daughter's abduction? It wouldn't have been the first time the wrong man was convicted. It kept me guessing until the end and I admired the author for being able to throw that element of doubt in her narrative.

Mostly, I felt the rawness of Lauren's emotions, the heart-wrenching pain of a woman incapable of letting go, to the detriment of her one remaining living daughter. It was both hard and easy to relate to Lauren; hard as we, the readers, from a detached standpoint, could observe the waste of her life and the pain she unwillingly inflicted to her younger daughter, Leah, by not being there for her; and easy because I could so easily imagine myself in her place. Would I let go if my daughter disappeared? Could I let go? It's easy for people to say, it's time to let go, you must go on with your life, think of your other daughter. It's easy when it's not happening to you. What a living hell it would be to imagine that the man who took your daughter and did God knows what to her is living, breathing, enjoying life and possibly praying on other young women. And to know that you can't do anything about it.

About Tami Hoag, she knows her stuff and the power of raw emotions. For all that, there was a little too much rehashing of Lauren's feelings throughout the novel, we got the point early on, half way through the book the commiseration was full blast and I was ready for more action and less inner turmoil. Still, on the whole, a decently paced thriller well worth your time.

3-1/2 stars, for real Tami Hoag fans ( )

This is the third Oak Knoll thriller. This one stars Detective Tony Mendez and has walk-ons from Vince and Anne Leone.

The story begins when Lauren Lawton and her daughter Leah come to Oak Knoll. They have gone through a very bad four years since Lauren's daughter and Leah's sister Leslie disappeared without a trace. The stresses were horrible as Lauren became totally focused on the hunt for Leslie. She harassed police departments in a number of jurisdictions because she didn't feel they were doing enough to find her daughter.

There is a suspect - Roland Ballencoa - who the police liked for the crime but they had no concrete evidence to link him to Leslie's disappearance. A small spot of blood in his van might be Leslie's but DNA testing hasn't advanced enough yet in 1990 to test it.

Lauren is sure that Ballencoa is stalking her but, again, there is no proof. In fact, Ballencola has sued her and local police departments for harassment and won. He is a very smart criminal who knows how to skirt the edge of the law.

Tony gets involved when Lauren and Leah come to Oak Knoll. He believes her and is very frustrated about how much the police department can do and still uphold the law. Lauren is a woman at the end of her rope. She doesn't eat; she doesn't sleep; she drinks too much. Leah is also falling apart but in a much quieter way; she has started cutting to ease the pain. Anne Leone wants to try to help them but can't do much more than offer herself as a sounding board for Lauren and Leah.

This story was told from multiple viewpoints. Lauren is writing about the experience to try to ease some of the pain. Tony is trying to get background on Ballencoa and working with another police officer from a jurisdiction that was the previous home of Ballencoa. We also get Ballencoa's very creepy viewpoint.

This was an exciting page-turner that kept me on the edge of my seat. I liked seeing Lauren's viewpoint as a woman obsessed with getting answers about the fate of her child. I felt sorry for Leah who felt abandoned by the mother she loves very much and who is very angry at her sister for the reckless behavior that led to her disappearance. I understood the frustration of law enforcement that felt that their hands were tied. ( )

Tami Hoag suspense novels are like champagne truffles dipped in crack. One sensuous nibble and you're gone. Whatever else you thought you were going to get accomplished today, forget it.

This one pushes several hot-buttons -- the loss of a child to a predator; the destruction of a family due to loss; the feeling that the system is stacked to prevent the apprehension of the prime suspect; the threat to the remaining child. How can you not get suckered in by this?

Hoag keeps things moving well, though the reader may sometimes get a bit impatient with the pages and pages and pages when one character or another is dissolving in grief and closing themselves away from any comfort. And some of the details about the activities of The Bad Guy are a bit too graphic for comfort.

But when push comes to shove -- and you know it will -- the climax is bloody and violent. And final, unlike some of Hoag's other works, when she sets a tickler in the final paragraph that makes the reader question every conclusion reached up to that point.

The novel is listed as "Oak Knoll #3", but stands well alone. However, if one is set on reading them all, they should probably be read in order, as "Down the Darkest Road" not only brings back some characters from the first two books, but casually mentions the identity of The Bad Guy in those novels and specifies who lived and who died.

Overall, it's a compelling read. ( )