Synopsis:

A thrilling suspense novel about a man’s dark past, his daughter’s mysterious visions, and a psychopath who wants to kill them both.
After scattering her mother’s ashes in Vietnam, photojournalist Xandra Carrick moves home to New York to rebuild her life and career. When she experiences supernatural visions that reveal atrocities perpetrated by American soldiers during the Vietnam War, she finds herself entangled in a forty-year-old conspiracy that could bring the nation into political turmoil.

Launching headlong into a quest to learn the truth from her father, a Pulitzer Prize winner who served as an embedded photographer during the war, Xandra confronts him about a dark secret he has kept—one that has devastated their family.

About the author: 

Winner of the 2011 INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS, and Amazon.com #1 bestselling author Joshua Graham’s Barnes & Noble #1 bestselling novel BEYOND JUSTICE is taking the world by storm, one reader at a time. Many of his readers blame him for sleepless nights, arriving to work late, neglected dishes and family members, and not allowing them to put the book down.

BEYOND JUSTICE, THE ACCIDENTAL EXORCIST, THE ACCIDENTAL HERO, THE ACCIDENTAL HEALER, and DEATH AND TAXES, have reached the top of multiple bestseller list on Barnes & Noble topping titles by John Grisham, Linda Fairstein, Scott Turrow and James Lee Burke, Ted Dekker and Steven James. Soaring to the top of the Barnes & Noble lists, BEYOND JUSTICE recently hit #1 in the Legal Thriller and Christian Thriller categories, topping by John Grisham, Joel C. Rosenberg, and Michael Connelly. It has also remained on the Amazon.com top 100 bestselling Kindle bestseller list months after its release.

Suspense Magazine listed BEYOND JUSTICE in its BEST OF 2010, alongside titles by Scott Turrow, Ted Dekker, Steven James and Brad Thor.

His short story THE DOOR’S OPEN won the HarperCollins Authonomy Competition (Christmas 2010.)

Publishers Weekly described BEYOND JUSTICE as:
“…A riveting legal thriller…. breaking new ground with a vengeance… demonically entertaining and surprisingly inspiring.”

Pursued across the continent, Xandra comes face-to-face with powerful forces that will stop at nothing to prevent her from revealing the truth. But not before government agencies arrest her for murder, domestic terrorism, and an assassination attempt on the newly elected president of the United States.

Darkroom is a riveting tale of suspense that tears the covers off the human struggle for truth in a world imprisoned by lies.

My Review:

Darkroom stayed in my head for several days after I’d finished it, a good book is always one that stays with the reader after the last page. Darkroom spans time, with part of the book set during the Vietnam War and other parts in more modern times. It is able to render the historical parts into vivid life, so that you feel and smell what is going on. Some parts are a little unpalatable, but no less real in terms of recreating some of atrocities of the time.

The characters are well drawn, I struggled a little with the main character of Xandra, but I think that’s probably because she was so real, that we wouldn’t get on if we were to ever meet! The darkness of others, particularly Richard Colson, and in his case never really being able to work out until the final pages, whether he will change, was a real hook.
At one point I thought the ending was going to be very different, and I guess the book could easily have ended a number of ways. I wonder if the author considered different endings when he wrote the book, and why he opted for the one he did?

Overall, and having now read a number of Joshua Graham’s books, I wouldn’t describe them as a light read. They are intricate creations of both reality, with a little of spirituality and fiction thrown in for good measure. You can easily imagine the stories have reality within their pages.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars; I really liked it.