The Darkness Gathers
Read The Darkness Gathers Online
Authors: Lisa Unger
Tags: #Fiction, #Suspense, #Thrillers, #Espionage
Praise for
the darkness gathers
“Tough but tender—a harrowing ride in the company of Lydia Strong, one of my favorite new characters, by one of my favorite new writers.”
—Lee Child,
New York Times
bestselling author
“Once in a while a mystery novel appears that has everything you want and more: gutsy, complicated characters, a rocket-paced story that hardly gives you time to catch your breath, and twists and turns you never see coming. This is that novel.…
The Darkness Gathers
is flat-out terrific.”
—Margaret Coel,
New York Times
bestselling author
“Fast-paced mystery … the tension is palpable.”
—Albuquerque Journal
“Taut and suspenseful.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Miscione appeared on the thriller scene a year ago with the widely acclaimed
Angel Fire
and should garner equally enthusiastic reviews for her second … it soars.”
—St. Petersburg Times
“The author, who lives in Clearwater, has a thorough understanding of the vagaries of South Florida. And Miscione delivers some action-packed scenes, especially a few creepy nights in Manhattan and a chilling visit to Albania.”
—Sun-Sentinel
“
The Darkness Gathers
is a compelling read with an interesting story line. The author’s portrayal of sexual slavery and the Albanian situation is edifying as well as disturbing.”
—Knoxville News Sentinel
“Miscione’s heroine [Lydia Strong] is suitably tormented and complex.…
The Darkness Gathers
doesn’t lack for thrills.”
—Orlando Sentinel
“This is a great second novel.… The suspense is almost unbearably high … an intelligent thriller, and the love story between Lydia and Jeffrey adds a poignant and beautiful relief to the omnipresent evil that pervades the rest of the pages. We can’t wait for the third.”
—New Mystery Reader Magazine
“Another fantastic page-turner … Lisa Miscione knows how to take an idea and make it extraordinary!”
—Book Review Cafe
“The intensity of the suspense of this novel is overwhelming with the surprises the author has in store for the reader. It will lead to sleepless nights and a sense of moral outrage when what the evil men do is exposed.
The Darkness Gathers
is a powerful novel.”
—I Love a Mystery Newsletter
“The second in Miscione’s series featuring true-crime writer Lydia Strong is a winner.… An exciting story enriched by a glamorous writer-heroine who carries a Glock and knows how to use it.”
—Booklist
“Complex protagonists, intense prose, and atmospheric descriptions combine to make Miscione’s second fictional outing a solid and satisfying read.”
—Library Journal
also by Lisa Unger
Darkness, My Old Friend
Fragile
Die for You
Black Out
Sliver of Truth
Beautiful Lies
writing as Lisa Miscione
Smoke
Twice
Angel Fire
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2003 by Lisa Miscione
Preface copyright © 2011 by Lisa Unger
Excerpt from
Twice
copyright © 2004 by Lisa Miscione
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Broadway Paperbacks, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Broadway Paperbacks and its logo, a letter B bisected on the diagonal, are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in hardcover in slightly different form in the United States by St. Martin’s Press, New York, in 2003 and subsequently in paperback by St. Martin’s Press, New York, in 2004.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Miscione, Lisa.
The darkness gathers / Lisa Miscione.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Teenage girls—Crimes against—Fiction. 2. Women journalists—Fiction.
3. Missing persons—Fiction. 4. Crime writing—Fiction. 5. Miami (Fla.)—
Fiction. 6. Kidnapping—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3613.183 D3 2003
813’.6—dc21 2002024527
eISBN: 978-0-307-95312-4
Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
Cover photography by Jen Kiaba/Trevillion Images
v3.1
To my grandparents,
Carmella and Mario Miscione
The solid foundation upon which all things are built,
The roots of the tree,
The source from which we all grew,
To be the people that we are …
And will be.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Preface
by Lisa Unger
I was nineteen years old when I first met Lydia Strong. I was living in the East Village, dating a New York City police officer, and attending Eugene Lang College, the undergraduate school of the New School for Social Research. I was sitting in a car, under the elevated section of the “1” line in the Bronx, waiting—for what I can’t remember. But in my mind that day, I kept seeing this woman running past a church. She was in New Mexico. And all I knew about her was that she was a damaged person, someone in great pain. Running, for her, was salve, religion, and drug. That was Lydia.
I pulled a napkin and a pen from the glove compartment and started writing the book that would become
Angel Fire
. It took me ten years to write that novel, mostly because the years between age nineteen and twenty-nine were, for me, years of hard work and tumultuous change. But also because during that time, I let my dreams of becoming a writer languish a bit. Lydia was faithful; she waited.
In spite of a first-rate education, a career in publishing, and a strong desire to write fiction, I didn’t know much of anything when I was writing my first novel. I don’t think you
can
really know anything about writing a novel until you’ve actually written one. (And then you go to school again when you sit down to write your second, and your third, and so on.) All I knew during that time was that I was truly fascinated by this woman occupying a place in my imagination, and I was deeply intrigued by her very dark appetites. I was enthralled by her past, by the mysteries in her present, and why she wouldn’t let herself love the man who loved her. There were lots of questions about Lydia Strong, and I was never happier over those ten years than when I was trying to answer them.