All the Dark Places

All the Dark Places by Terri Parlato is a suspenseful and atmospheric mystery thriller. This debut novel is well crafted and hooked me in the first chapter.

Molly Bradley has thrown a fortieth birthday party for her husband Jay with their closest friends gathered for the event. Everyone loved Jay, but the next morning Molly finds Jay dead in his home office in the detached garage.

Detective Rita Myers and her partner Detective Chase Fuller, with the Graybridge, Massachusetts police department, get the case. Jay’s murder doesn’t seem to be a crime of opportunity or random. Did one of his and Molly’s friends kill him? As the police dig into Jay’s life and those of their friends, everyone becomes a suspect. Meanwhile, Molly is devastated. Jay is the only person who really understands the horror she lived through when she was young. Now, her rock is gone. Who can Molly trust and who killed Jay?

Molly is haunted by her past, but readers only gradually learn what happened to her. She no longer feels safe. However, some of the things she does made me believe she wasn’t thinking straight. I found myself asking multiple times: Why did Molly do that? Rita is an experienced Boston police officer and detective who accepted the job in Graybridge when a friend became the police chief there. She loves training new detectives, has recently turned sixty, and still likes the challenge of the job and solving mysteries.

This fascinating story is told from the points of view of Molly and Rita. It had the combined aspects of a police procedural, a murder mystery, and a psychological thriller. As readers, we get clues as the characters do. Will you guess who the killer is?

This author brought a wide variety of characters together, but they weren’t extremely diverse. I hope that changes in the next novel. Most of the characters are self-confident, but are their stories truths or lies?

With a strong start to the novel, readers have to decipher the clues with Molly and Rita. Everyone seems to have secrets. The plot is deeply involved with several twists to the story to keep readers captivated to its dramatic conclusion.

Parlato brought suspense, interesting characters, and an exciting story line together in a thrilling novel. I am looking forward to reading her next book. I would also love to see a series featuring Rita. If you enjoy intriguing police procedurals, mysteries, and psychological thrillers, then this may be the book for you.

Kensington Books and Terri Parlato provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own. Publication date is currently set for December 27 2022.