My favourite Netflix Series of the last few years have been Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Stranger Things and The Crown. Knowing my penchant for all things related to Stranger Things, My son David gave me Darkness On the Edge of Town for Christmas 2019.
This book is the second of the official Stranger Things novels, released as part of a series exploring side stories set in the world of the show. The first book was Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds by Gwenda Bond and told the story of Eleven's mother and was a prequel to the hit show Stranger Things. I haven't read that one yet.
The second book, Darkness on the Edge of Town, provides some insight into Jim Hopper's life as a New York City detective working homicide before he ended up as chief of police in Hawkins. The storytelling method uses a throwback technique (Christmas eve, Hopper and El sitting around as he recounts a case in 1977). That worked ok for me - I have no issue with the way it is presented in flashback.
Ok, what to make of Darkness which was released in 2019. Adam Christopher is a well-respected author whose debut novel, Empire State, was SciFiNow’s Book of the Year and a Financial Times Book of the Year.
The story is not really a Stranger Things Story. It is more a case of "fanfiction" where the owners of the franchise push out other unrelated stuff and leverage off the big fanbase. It's just a standard detective story and, as such, has to stand alone and be judged on that criterion alone. Yes, it's a reasonable crime story but nothing spectacular. It's quite big, coming in at a bit over 400 pages but is by no means a riveting story.
On the negative side, it finishes far too quickly. The last few pages come and go as the story draws to a swift and unsatisfactory end. It deserved a lot more in terms of the way it is all wound up. It seemed to me that he just wanted to finish the story and did so quickly and without due consideration of readers.
Score: 6/10 as a detective story but 1/10 as a Stranger Things story.
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