The Dark Room

By Julia Cameron

Seeking to solve the crime behind the crimes, Detective Mayo confronts his haunted past, his lover's terrible secret, and his own child's devastating fragility.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786705647
• ISBN13: 9780786705641
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub
• Length: 436 Pages
• Weight: 1.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.8" x 1.8" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

The Dark Room helped me Find the Light!

I read this book because of The Artists Way but was very surprised where it led me. I found it hard to put down. This book made me realize my husband's unhealthy fixation with pornography. Through the story and the characters, I came face to face with validation that my husband had major problems he was not facing. And so did I by staying in this marriage. Soon after, I began divorce proceedings. This book gave me clarity to realize my instincts were right about my initial feelingsabout his fixation with porn. It gave me the courage to reclaim my life. And I just thought it was a simple detective story!

The best kind of surprise

OK, I warily approached reading The Dark Room when I got it for Christmas. It was a big, crime story that was well, dark. I trudged through the first chapter...then I COULD NOT PUT THE BOOK DOWN. It is riveting, with no slow spots. I can't remember the last time I read a book that I could not wait to get home to, that I would sneak to read on my lunch hour, that woke me up an hour before work, summoning me to read. Hell, even Morning Pages couldn't do that! I want to send this book to everyone who wants to rediscover the thrill of reading fiction again. I sure did. READ THIS BOOK!

Refined suspence, powerful story

Julia Cameron surprized me with a powerful and dynamic story about child abuse. God forbid such truths exist! I learned from the book, was constantly intrigued and was amazed as the multiple levels of the story unfolded.

It's a cop-thriller that shrieks "read me, read me."

Julia Cameron, best selling author of "The Artist's Way" and "The Vein of Gold" has written a killer first novel entitled "The Dark Room," a cop-thriller that's guaranteed to shriek from your desk at three a.m. screaming "read me, read me!" And guess what? You won't go back to sleep. You'll simply have to crack it open to see what Chicago homicide detective Elliot Mayo does next as he follows a serial killer's trail that drags him through the labyrinthian underbelly of child pornography, Satanism and murderously unimaginable sex crimes. Cameron lights the first stick of dynamite with the murder of Jack Nesbitt. Before his death, Nesbitt was known in upscale circles as a great photographer and a real artist. On the street he was known as "The Hose" because everybody knew he had a long reach and could turn you onto anything and everything: orgies,three ways, sex shows, bondage, snuff films and more. As Detective Mayo wades through this sewer, his twenty year plus cool-cop exterior begins to dissolve as he faces his unresolved past, confronts the ramifications of his own son Zachary's brutal sexual assault and deals with a steamy attraction to his prime suspect, the gorgeous Doctor Violet Winters, a pediatrician by day and a nasty mouth, leather tight cowgirl by night. Cameron, true to her belief that good wins in the end, makes sure that Mayo's dilemma does not crucify him. Faced with these revolting crimes and with the help of Father Bremner, Mayo draws on a spiritual faith he'd long ago discarded in favor of his pistol, his bullet proof vest, his brains and his badge. Cameron shows us that even in the darkest room in the darkest cellar redemption does not take a day off. Mayo's growing faith gives him the strength to push on and in the end to shine the light in the startled eyes of the killer who stays buried almost until the end. Cameron's page turning thriller will indeed keep you up at night and furthermore, it will leave you with no doubt that sex addiction, perversion and pornography are insidious dark diseases that can only be combated if we face them and know they're there. Hats off to Cameron!

GO GET IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the first book that has kept me up all night in ten years... first, because I couldn't stop reading it, and later, because it gave me nightmares. The Dark Room is fabulous... it reminded a non-reader why reading is so fun and I'm eagerly awaiting more novels from Julia. Maybe you recognize Julia Cameron as the author of The Artist's Way... The Dark Room, a different genre, is another inspired work of art from an incredibly diverse and multitalented artist. For everyone who loved The Artist's Way, go and see what Julia is making now!!! Her example as a daring and prolific artist is as inspiring as her books are. For all of the crime novel fans in the world, read it, it's intelligent, scary, suspenseful and riveting. I loved it, go get it!