Into The Darkness, by Barbara Michaels

I couldn't help myself, and I read Into The Darkness, by Barbara Michaels, even though I know I shouldn't read too many books by the same author in a row.

Upon the death of her grandfather, Meg Venturi finds herself part owner of an antique jewelry store. The local townspeople of Seldon, a small New England town, cannot understand why her grandfather would leave the other half of his store to the sinister and enigmatic man called A. L. Riley. But a series of threatening events convinces Meg that somebody wants her out of town.

The well-meaning but relentlessly nosy townspeople appear to know more than they're letting on, and a fine collection of garrulous businessmen, surly former classmates and exotic relatives keep Meg on her toes--and constantly looking over her shoulder.While the grandfather's estate is being settled, a series of mysterious events occur that lead to revelations from the past.

Into the Darkness was a suspense novel, without any paranormal elements. Though the suspense elements weren't too good, the characters and their relationships were excellent enough to keep me very interested. A B+.

Riley, our enigmatic hero, was a very appealing character. I'm a sucker for vulnerable, persecuted heroes, and he was very definitely all that. Michaels wrote him well, not seeing his POV let him retain his mystery, but even through Meg's eyes we readers could perceive some of what he was going through. When everything comes out, in that great scene near the end, it's wonderful to see he was feeling everything I suspected and more! I really liked the way their relationship developed.

I liked Meg, too, though it took me a little while to warm up to her. What I liked most about her was her intelligence about picking her fights. She was able to tolerate irritating but ultimately unimportant things, like her grandmother's insistence on her helping address thank you cards a whole afternoon, but when it came to integrity and honesty, she didn't compromise. Neither did she compromise on giving Riley a chance, against the advice of most of the town, and she won my respect with that kind of attitude.

I found all the background about the jewelry business fascinating, especially because it mostly wasn't about "important" jewelry, fabulous stones and the like, which is what most authors go ga-ga about. No, Michaels concentrated mostly on semiprecious stones and the jewelry made with them, which gave the book a nice extra touch.

As for the suspense subplot, I'm afraid it wasn't very good. Basically, the problem was that it all depended on too many people keeping secrets from each other for no good reason. I got left with the feeling that they had overcomplicated something that could have been solved much more easily, and with less danger to their lives, too.

The dénuément was good, even though through large part of it, I hadn't the slightest idea of what was going on. What made it good was all the character development we got throughout it (some of which I emntioned above). And, weird in a Barbara Michaels book, we actually had a kind of epilogue! Wonderful, her endings are often much too abrupt, but here we have pages and pages, concentrating on the romance part, no less!