What do you think?
Rate this book
Rain Morgan Mystery #4
Curse the Darkness
Gossip columnist Rain Morgan investigates curious rumors surrounding the suicide of a television star, whose world included cutthroat agents and frustrated writers
488 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1987
About the author
Lesley Grant-Adamson
27 booksLesley Grant-Adamson (nee Lesley Heycock) was born in Islington, north London in 1942, and spent most of her childhood in Trealaw in the Rhondda.
She now lives in Debenham, Suffolk, but during the 1980s and 1990s lived in Islington, the scene of several of her novels. Since 1968 she has been married to Andrew Grant-Adamson, a communications consultant and lecturer in journalism at City University and Westminster University. Together they wrote A Season in Spain (Pavilion), a portrait of the Alpujarra region of Andalusia where they lived from 1991-3.
She was educated at Dame Alice Owen School and then worked as a journalist in London and the provinces until the early Seventies when she joined the London staff of The Guardian. In 1981 she left The Guardian to write fiction.
She is a member of the Society of Authors, the Royal Society of Literature, the Welsh Academy, East Anglia Writers and the Crime Writers’ Association.
She now lives in Debenham, Suffolk, but during the 1980s and 1990s lived in Islington, the scene of several of her novels. Since 1968 she has been married to Andrew Grant-Adamson, a communications consultant and lecturer in journalism at City University and Westminster University. Together they wrote A Season in Spain (Pavilion), a portrait of the Alpujarra region of Andalusia where they lived from 1991-3.
She was educated at Dame Alice Owen School and then worked as a journalist in London and the provinces until the early Seventies when she joined the London staff of The Guardian. In 1981 she left The Guardian to write fiction.
She is a member of the Society of Authors, the Royal Society of Literature, the Welsh Academy, East Anglia Writers and the Crime Writers’ Association.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 6, 2023
One of the most tedious and poorly constructed crime novels I have read in a long time.
Rain Morgan is at work in her newspaper office when the building is invaded by two groups of protestors. When the protestors leave, the newspaper's proprietor, Hal MacQuillan, is found stabbed to death.
In spite of being told at the start that the receptionist "was grabbed and dragged into a lift" by two of the protestors, everyone decides that MacQuillan must have been murdered by a member of staff since the protestors didn't have the opportunity and no one else could have got past the receptionist ?! I'm also bemused by the fact that no one makes any complaint to the police about the physical assault and vandalism committed by the protestors...
The rest of the plot is equally clunky and creaky, and I found it hard to care about any of the characters. I didn't particularly enjoy the previous Rain Morgan mystery I read, but one thing I did appreciate about it was the quality of the writing - unfortunately, the writing in this novel is incredibly boring, with the actions of multiple last-name-only characters being described in painful detail: "Harbury tried to grab the apparent opportunity, but Wickham neatly tuned the conversation so that Shildon was able to go on where he left off. This was not simply courteous, Wickham was as attentive as the others. At first Shildon shied away but Eliot urged..." or "Rain got through to Marshall who said he would take the call. Holly asked Rain whether Sniffy had named names yet and she admitted getting nothing from him."
And then we have loads of irrelevancies like this one: "Just as her words were out one of the charity women came chattering in through the open doors to the terrace. She had news about the clearing-up operations and enquiries about a necklace lost by someone called Clarissa. Rain abandoned Aying and telephoned Wickham."
By the time Rain works out who the killer is, the police already know and are preparing for the arrest. Far from helping them with their case, Rain actually hindered the investigation because she shares everything she finds out so widely that the killer gets all the details on the police progress from her!
"It had been a fumbling, unsatisfactory case" writes Grant-Adamson in the closing chapters. I couldn't agree more.
Rain Morgan is at work in her newspaper office when the building is invaded by two groups of protestors. When the protestors leave, the newspaper's proprietor, Hal MacQuillan, is found stabbed to death.
In spite of being told at the start that the receptionist "was grabbed and dragged into a lift" by two of the protestors, everyone decides that MacQuillan must have been murdered by a member of staff since the protestors didn't have the opportunity and no one else could have got past the receptionist ?! I'm also bemused by the fact that no one makes any complaint to the police about the physical assault and vandalism committed by the protestors...
The rest of the plot is equally clunky and creaky, and I found it hard to care about any of the characters. I didn't particularly enjoy the previous Rain Morgan mystery I read, but one thing I did appreciate about it was the quality of the writing - unfortunately, the writing in this novel is incredibly boring, with the actions of multiple last-name-only characters being described in painful detail: "Harbury tried to grab the apparent opportunity, but Wickham neatly tuned the conversation so that Shildon was able to go on where he left off. This was not simply courteous, Wickham was as attentive as the others. At first Shildon shied away but Eliot urged..." or "Rain got through to Marshall who said he would take the call. Holly asked Rain whether Sniffy had named names yet and she admitted getting nothing from him."
And then we have loads of irrelevancies like this one: "Just as her words were out one of the charity women came chattering in through the open doors to the terrace. She had news about the clearing-up operations and enquiries about a necklace lost by someone called Clarissa. Rain abandoned Aying and telephoned Wickham."
By the time Rain works out who the killer is, the police already know and are preparing for the arrest. Far from helping them with their case, Rain actually hindered the investigation because she shares everything she finds out so widely that the killer gets all the details on the police progress from her!
"It had been a fumbling, unsatisfactory case" writes Grant-Adamson in the closing chapters. I couldn't agree more.
January 23, 2024
I've been binge reading the series, and rather liked the first three, but really didn't enjoy this much. There was far, far too much following characters that weren't the theoretical mystery solver. It was all related in a way, but I found myself skip-reading acres of the book because I didn't like the characters or their behaviour and wanted to follow the actual discovering about the mysteries, rather than watching half the mysteries being carried out in the first place. And as for the last section, the number of coincidences beggared belief. Sorry, can't recomment this, the 1st two in the series were best and it's been a bit downhill fron there.
January 31, 2024
The Sale of a Newspaper/Then Murder
The new owner of the newspaper turns out to be a horrid person, demanding unthinkable columnists from its writers-forcing some of them out & the trouble begins- everything goes wrong & then there’s a murder to contend with- who did it/ why/ an investigation
& Rain is a big part of it!!
The new owner of the newspaper turns out to be a horrid person, demanding unthinkable columnists from its writers-forcing some of them out & the trouble begins- everything goes wrong & then there’s a murder to contend with- who did it/ why/ an investigation
& Rain is a big part of it!!
April 8, 2024
I didn't read all of this book as I grew a bit bored reading it, mainly all the many many people who cropped up in an news papers office. I grew impatient with it. I dont usually leave a book part way through reading but I did on this occasion.
July 30, 2022
I bought this, when it came out - 33 years ago(!) and I thought it was time I read it!
It is a solid mystery. Some might see some interesting parallels in how media has evolved. That in itself was intriguing, but like so many mysteries these changes don’t affect the story. A little pedestrian but still a good bit of escapism.
It is a solid mystery. Some might see some interesting parallels in how media has evolved. That in itself was intriguing, but like so many mysteries these changes don’t affect the story. A little pedestrian but still a good bit of escapism.
November 30, 2012
I'm really surprised at the low ratings this book has received here. I loved it! I was drawn to it initially because of the setting (publishing industry) and I was intrigued by that. But I was really impressed by the story and the writing, which I Ioved. This is the only Lesley Grant-Adamson book I've read but I can say from this book she is a great writer. The blurb on the front sells her as "one of the classiest thriller writers around" and I couldn't have put it better myself. If you're interested in clever writing, a decent story and a pretty honest & insightful look into the (sometimes) manipulative world of book publishing, I'd recommend you give this book a try.
March 25, 2017
Didn't like the writing, couldn't finish it.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews