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About to close a major deal, Ed Lister is called to the phone. It’s the news every parent dreads. His art-student daughter Sophie has been found brutally murdered in Florence.
In an instant, Ed’s charmed world – successful business, beautiful wife, lavish lifestyle – begins to unravel.
Frustrated with the official police inquiry, Ed vows to find Sophie’s killer. When his quest leads to a mysterious website, Ed hires a young cyber-sleuth to track down the web-master, Ward – the most companionably lethal psychopath you could ever hope not to meet.
As the hunt for Ward follows a trail of bodies across Europe to America, the detective begins to harbour doubts about his client. There are some things Ed hasn’t revealed to him, his wife or the police – like his online relationship with a woman in New York.
Now at every twist and turn the truth becomes more elusive. Who is really hunting whom? And what is the mystery reaching out of the past and locking Ed and Ward in a struggle for revenge that may conceal an even darker secret?
In an instant, Ed’s charmed world – successful business, beautiful wife, lavish lifestyle – begins to unravel.
Frustrated with the official police inquiry, Ed vows to find Sophie’s killer. When his quest leads to a mysterious website, Ed hires a young cyber-sleuth to track down the web-master, Ward – the most companionably lethal psychopath you could ever hope not to meet.
As the hunt for Ward follows a trail of bodies across Europe to America, the detective begins to harbour doubts about his client. There are some things Ed hasn’t revealed to him, his wife or the police – like his online relationship with a woman in New York.
Now at every twist and turn the truth becomes more elusive. Who is really hunting whom? And what is the mystery reaching out of the past and locking Ed and Ward in a struggle for revenge that may conceal an even darker secret?
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Reviews
Maclean is a formidable writer, who takes simple ideas and turns them into compelling thrillers. In the recent Home Before Dark, Maclean takes on a subject I'm surprised hasn't been dealt with more: the internet chat room, which was one of the earliest attractions of online life and that has proven to be among the most dangerous. I'm a sucker for the twisting plot, and that's one of Maclean's specialities.
Utterly gripping - the best thriller of the Internet age I have ever read. It lures you into the seductive world of the chat-room, where nothing is quite what it seems, and the mundane shades chillingly into the sinister. There were times when I scarcely dared to turn the page.
A classic thriller of the highest quality - complex, meticulously researched and skilfully told - but it goes further, taking the genre into cyber-space and giving terror a whole new dimension. The murderous hacker enters unobserved into his victims' lives. Reality and virtual reality become confused. The protagonists criss-cross the globe by train and plane but the digital avenger is always one step ahead. A compulsive read.
Tautly crafted and chilling, if there's a rush of people cancelling internet chatroom accounts this month blame the dark talent of Charles Maclean
I was SO impressed by Charles Maclean's HOME BEFORE DARK - what a gripping, disturbing, utterly up to the minute thriller - such an achievement
Packed with blood, murder and mayhem, HOME BEFORE DARK is a particularly disturbing thriller - menacing...gruesome...original. Gird yourself and don't underestimate Maclean.
A thriller that gripped me by the throat and wouldn't let go for 36 tortured hours, HOME BEFORE DARK chills the eyes as well as the spine. I have never seen such evil leak out of a computer screen. Maclean is a master of electronic horror.
Like the best horror stories, HOME BEFORE DARK creates a stifling, claustrophobic atmosphere; it catches you up so you feel you are a player in the plot, not just an observer. It doesn't let you rest: you wake in the night and carry on reading - and as more pieces of the jig-saw fall into place, you begin to see the potential horror just as the protagonists become aware of it. Marvellously ingenious and unexpected.
Intricately plotted and cast in understated prose, HOME BEFORE DARK kept me up long after midnight.
A very well written thriller, with moments of genuine suspense and jeopardy, HOME BEFORE DARK is a modern horror story full of very human demons.