| Plot Summary of Dark Eye |
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Ballantine, Jan 2005, 125.95, 480 pp.
ISBN: 034547015X
Alcoholic Susan Pulaski loses her job as a police psychologist for the Las Vegas Police Department because she rarely stays sober. However, she has no time to drown her latest sorrow with more drink because her former boss LVPD Chief O'Bannon, who fired her, needs her skills as a profiler to stop a clever serial killer who murders young girls and leaves behind a cryptic note.
Susan asks her ex-boss' twenty-something son Darby, an idiot savant whose expertise happens to be encrypted messages to break the code. They soon find an Edgar Allen Poe cryptic, but have no idea what that means in the deadly modern context. Unbeknownst to Susan she plays a beleaguered heroine in a Poe work as the killer has a role for her that will end in her death if he directs the show.
Harriet Klausner
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Harriet Klausner, Resident Scholar
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"The protagonist, a PHD mis-fit female detective/profiler "Susan" recently widowed, late husband also a police detective. Sinks into mentally ill soup of alcoholism, violent assault, alcoholism detox, hallucinations, job and status loss, delusions of persecution and justifiable loss of custody of her ward niece into the care of a foster family. Rather than be a come back from behind character Susan continues to secretly, she thinks, drink after her bout with detox. Remarkably, the police superior that fired her hires her back as a special consultant on a serial murder. Then even more remarkably Susan becomes the focus of the antagonist. Along the way Susan has drunken alley sex with someone she barely could remember to speak to in the bar earlier that night. The sex, implied as unprotected anal intercourse with a stranger, pushed this book over the edge and into the trash."
Soliton, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of Dark Eye |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Composition of Book
descript. of violence and chases - 10%
Planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 50%
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 30%
How society works & physical descript. (people, objects, places) - 10%
Tone of story
- suspenseful (sophisticated fear)
How difficult to spot villain?
- Very difficult--no foreshadowing/clues
Time/era of story:
- present (2000-2010)
What % of story relates directly
to the mystery, not the subplot?
- 80%
Misc. Murder Plotlets
- killer purposefully leaves puzzle clues
Kind of investigator
- police procedural, American
Kid or adult book?
- Adult or Young Adult Book
Any non-mystery subplot?
- feelings of fear/loss/inadequacy
Crime Thriller
Yes
Murder Mystery (killer unknown)
Yes
Main Character
Gender
- Female
Profession/status:
- government investigator
- police/lawman
Age:
- 20's-30's
Eccentric/Mental:
Yes
Eccentric:
- eccentric
- mentally ill
- deluded
- emotionally unstable
- wild
How much violence does he/she use?
- none
- a significant amount
Ethnicity/Race
- White/American
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Cynical sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
- Very much smarter than other characters
Physique
- very athletic
- physically sick
Main Adversary
Identity:
- Male
Age:
- 20's-30's
- 40's-50's
Profession/status:
- killer
- police
Eccentric:
Yes
- obsessed
- deluded
- mentally ill
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- a moderate amount
Motive of antagonist
- insanity
The antagonists are:
- government bureaucracy
How sensitive is this character?
- hard edged
Sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Physique
- very athletic
Setting
United States
Yes
The US:
- West
Desert?
Yes
Style
Person
- mostly 1st
- mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death?
- generic/vague references to death/punishment
- very gorey references to torture
How many deaths?
- 3-4
Sex
Yes
What kind of sex:
- vague references
- touching of anatomy
- descript. of breasts
Unusual forms of death
- asphyxiation
Unusual form of death?
Yes
Amount of dialog
- mostly dialog
- significantly more dialog than descript
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