The Darkest Hour: Katherine Howell

From the author's website:

Paramedic Lauren Yates stumbles into a world of trouble the night she discovers a killer and his victim in an inner Sydney alley. When the killer threatens to make her life hell if she tells the police what she’s seen, she believes him – he’s Thomas Werner, her sister’s violent ex, father to Lauren’s niece, and not a man to cross.
                But when another victim of a stabbing reveals to Lauren with his dying breath that Werner attacked him, too, she finds herself with blood on her hands and Detective Ella Marconi on her back. Ella is keen to cement her temporary placement in the homicide squad and views Lauren as the perfect witness for this latest murder because she can testify to the victim’s last words.
                Ella soon realises Lauren is hiding something, however, and while her colleagues label her suspicion an obsession, she begins her own investigation. But the harder Ella pushes, the more Lauren resists, and the worse the threat from Werner becomes, putting them both in increasingly serious jeopardy.

You can tell from the description above that the story is fairly complex. It is actually even more complex than the summary implies. The nearly 500 pages of the novel are packed and I have no complaints about that.

I read Katherine Howell's first book, Frantic, in one day, which is very unusual for me. This book was longer and I had less available time, so it took two or three days, but it still had good pacing and kept me eager to come back for more.

I like the format of the Ella Marconi series. Ella is the protagonist, but each book has a new paramedic as a main character. In these first two books, I do see a pattern of romance being an element in the paramedic's story, and I usually don't care for that aspect in mysteries. In this case it did not bother me.

These are definitely thrillers, but not so thrillerish as to be unrealistic. From the beginning we know the identity of the murderer, so the mystery is how the investigation will play out and how Lauren's family will fare as long as Thomas Werner is free.

To recap, the elements I like most are the fast pacing and the two storylines of the policewoman and the paramedic. The two main protagonists are strong women. Both are dedicated to their jobs and concerned about keeping their jobs. That is something I can understand.

Katherine Howell is an Australian crime writer who worked as a paramedic for 15 years. Per the author's website, Tell the Truth, the eighth book in the Ella Marconi series, will be released in Australia on 1st February 2015.

See other reviews at: Reactions to Reading, Mysteries in Paradise, and Petrona. 

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Publisher:   Pan Books, 2009 (orig. pub. 2008)
Length:      495 pages
Format:      Paperback
Series:       Ella Marconi #2
Setting:      Sydney, Australia
Genre:       Police procedural
Source:      I purchased this book.