Mentoring Darkness is a psychological thriller novella and a quick read at 104 pages.
Leo receives a worried text from his friend Anita about a troubled youngster Nick, that Leo has taken under his wing. Leo, who has survived an abusive childhood, thinks Anita is blowing up the issue but knows he will see her later and they can chat about her fears. When he arrives at her place, she is nowhere to be seen. It soon comes out that Anita is gone and Leo is being blamed for it. In light of the text Anita sent to him about Nick, he is torn between reporting it or doing some investigating himself. The more he looks into it, the more he realises that things are most definitely not what they seem.
The blurb of the book sounded so promising that I thought I’d start it quickly one night before I went to sleep but landed up reading the whole thing. Unfortunately, it was a huge hit and miss for me. It had all the elements of a disappearance, a person being accused unjustly, snippets of info that could lead to a number of people being the killer and other storylines of romance and abuse being involved. All of a sudden, BAM, the story is over. I turned the page to see if who the killer is claimed to be is definitely the one and there is no more story. It felt like the book just ended in the middle of a chapter. There are too many unanswered questions for the story to end satisfactorily, and as the reader, I wasn’t sure if I believed the ending or not. The characters are engaging and the author does a great job of connecting the reader with their inner struggles, but too many paths are left open at the end. While I have no problem with cliffhangers, this was more of not knowing how to finish character’s stories off. It would be interesting to see more of this author’s work to see if that writing is in the same vein.
Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to review the book.
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