What do you think?
Rate this book
The Tipping Point
"Best novel I have read in 2021! An outstanding debut novel by an incredible author."
- Jonas Saul, author of the Sarah Roberts Series.
Arrow Point Police Sergeant, Noah Hunter, isn’t afraid to bend the rules to get results. But now he’s faced with a decision—he must choose between justice or retribution.
While investigating two brutal murders, Noah finds a note warning him to back off or face severe consequences.
When he doesn’t heed the warning, someone close to him pays for that decision. The investigation leads him to a Chicago crime family, so Noah brings the fight to them as he’s left with no other options.
As Sergeant Hunter struggles to protect his friends, colleagues, and everyone else in Arrow Point, revenge is foremost in his mind.
However, his actions create a ripple effect and Noah’s future is uncertain, especially when everything isn't as it seems.
- Jonas Saul, author of the Sarah Roberts Series.
Arrow Point Police Sergeant, Noah Hunter, isn’t afraid to bend the rules to get results. But now he’s faced with a decision—he must choose between justice or retribution.
While investigating two brutal murders, Noah finds a note warning him to back off or face severe consequences.
When he doesn’t heed the warning, someone close to him pays for that decision. The investigation leads him to a Chicago crime family, so Noah brings the fight to them as he’s left with no other options.
As Sergeant Hunter struggles to protect his friends, colleagues, and everyone else in Arrow Point, revenge is foremost in his mind.
However, his actions create a ripple effect and Noah’s future is uncertain, especially when everything isn't as it seems.
ebook
Published June 15, 2021
2 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
David Darling
8 books61 followersAuthor of the Noah Hunter series, Edge of Time, Edge of Eternity, Serve in the Shadows: Recruitment, and Grim Measures.
David grew up in a small-town east of Toronto, Canada. He has had many interests throughout the years including the military, martial arts, playing guitar, reading, and in his own mind, he is quite the excellent fisherman. David is married and has one daughter and misses his chocolate lab daily.
Feel free to write to David Darling at:
author.david.darling@gmail.com
David grew up in a small-town east of Toronto, Canada. He has had many interests throughout the years including the military, martial arts, playing guitar, reading, and in his own mind, he is quite the excellent fisherman. David is married and has one daughter and misses his chocolate lab daily.
Feel free to write to David Darling at:
author.david.darling@gmail.com
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 13, 2021
New fiction author David Darling introduces us to his newest hero of the hour, Sgt. Noah Hunter of the Arrow Point, WY Police Department, a mature 38 yr old with 18 yrs on the force, keeping law and order in an average small city in America, an hour west of Casper, Wyoming. Like all small cities perched on the edge of rural America, you occasionally end up with big city crime. Car vandalism, small town drug usage, maybe an occasional bar fight. Nothing prepared this officer for what he was to encounter. A brutal killing zone, where victims are savagely tortured and killed, one after another.
Darling has a smooth, easy writing style relating the story from a first person point of view in dialogue, thoughts and ideas relayed, and descriptions where the reader can quickly visualize the scene. He introduces the cast and characters in such a way that the reader has the full array of the components found in small town America, how they interrelate with other, and how they tie in to the crime spree hitting Arrow Point. Darling has a really good feel for small town America and who are the movers and shakers in this environment.
It’s not often you see murders as grizzly as this show up. In college I had a job typing court transcript for the Common Pleas Court, especially in the area of major crimes. Northeast Ohio in the 1970s was plagued with big time Mafia crime families in everything from prostitution, drug importation, turf wars, petty theft, murders,and shakedowns. There was a Little Italy found in every moderate to large size city across the United States that had to deal with major crime sprees. It was not unusual to have the FBI and the Dept. of Justice and their task forces brought in to assist in crime investigations. The accuracy of the unfolding of events and how different agencies worked together is spot on from what I remember. The same for police operational procedures.
It soon becomes apparent that this small, laid back city is facing big city problems that may overwhelm its capabilities to cope. Sgt. Hunter knows his town, and the people in it. He knows everyone from the skid row inhabitants to the tavern and restaurant operators. He steadily dated and got engaged to a local school teacher. He thought he knew all about these, his people, what made them tick, how to predict action and reaction, yet he wasn’t prepared for what hit him. Unknowingly, he has stepped into a hornets nest and is on the receiving end of threats. Threats against him and his fiancé, warnings to butt out. The threats become real and his fiancé is found blown to smithereens in his house. Noah Hunter is determined to find the guilty party even if it’s the last thing he does.
After funeral services, he returns to his deceased fiancé’s apartment to live and discovers a hidden key, a key with a LOT of unexplained money, and with the ensuing investigation realized he never knew who or what his fiancé was. Too many unanswered questions with few answers. His quest to unearth the truth leads him to Chicago and to the infamous Luciano crime family.Noah finds himself dealing with threats no matter which way he turns, and they are harbingers for what is to come.
The threats and danger come in hot and heavy with surprises throughout the story. The book shows a protagonist determined to see it all to the end and seek justice. Friends,like family, die and Hunter doesn’t always find justice. He seeks justice and vengeance against those who nearly destroy him.
Darling does a great job tying the loose ends together, and giving his hero a way forward. I see The Tipping Point as a great lead in to a book series. He’s created a great character, capable of extracting himself from dangerous situations, is likable, and where every strong hero lives by his principles.
I don’t often read crime novels. Having grown up in a courtroom and having seen the ugly side of life, I wasn’t sure if I’d be revisited by the horror nightmares with such gruesome murders. Darling relates police life and crimes committed the way I remember it. He develops a storyline that creates empathy for the protagonist and hoping Sgt.Hunter achieves justice in the end.
The Tipping Point is a well told tale,with an offering of complex characters.I see it as a great beach read,or a book to snuggle down with in front of the fire on a damp rainy day.It gives insight into organized crime and leaves you anticipating the next installment. I liked it, well done, David! 5*
Darling has a smooth, easy writing style relating the story from a first person point of view in dialogue, thoughts and ideas relayed, and descriptions where the reader can quickly visualize the scene. He introduces the cast and characters in such a way that the reader has the full array of the components found in small town America, how they interrelate with other, and how they tie in to the crime spree hitting Arrow Point. Darling has a really good feel for small town America and who are the movers and shakers in this environment.
It’s not often you see murders as grizzly as this show up. In college I had a job typing court transcript for the Common Pleas Court, especially in the area of major crimes. Northeast Ohio in the 1970s was plagued with big time Mafia crime families in everything from prostitution, drug importation, turf wars, petty theft, murders,and shakedowns. There was a Little Italy found in every moderate to large size city across the United States that had to deal with major crime sprees. It was not unusual to have the FBI and the Dept. of Justice and their task forces brought in to assist in crime investigations. The accuracy of the unfolding of events and how different agencies worked together is spot on from what I remember. The same for police operational procedures.
It soon becomes apparent that this small, laid back city is facing big city problems that may overwhelm its capabilities to cope. Sgt. Hunter knows his town, and the people in it. He knows everyone from the skid row inhabitants to the tavern and restaurant operators. He steadily dated and got engaged to a local school teacher. He thought he knew all about these, his people, what made them tick, how to predict action and reaction, yet he wasn’t prepared for what hit him. Unknowingly, he has stepped into a hornets nest and is on the receiving end of threats. Threats against him and his fiancé, warnings to butt out. The threats become real and his fiancé is found blown to smithereens in his house. Noah Hunter is determined to find the guilty party even if it’s the last thing he does.
After funeral services, he returns to his deceased fiancé’s apartment to live and discovers a hidden key, a key with a LOT of unexplained money, and with the ensuing investigation realized he never knew who or what his fiancé was. Too many unanswered questions with few answers. His quest to unearth the truth leads him to Chicago and to the infamous Luciano crime family.Noah finds himself dealing with threats no matter which way he turns, and they are harbingers for what is to come.
The threats and danger come in hot and heavy with surprises throughout the story. The book shows a protagonist determined to see it all to the end and seek justice. Friends,like family, die and Hunter doesn’t always find justice. He seeks justice and vengeance against those who nearly destroy him.
Darling does a great job tying the loose ends together, and giving his hero a way forward. I see The Tipping Point as a great lead in to a book series. He’s created a great character, capable of extracting himself from dangerous situations, is likable, and where every strong hero lives by his principles.
I don’t often read crime novels. Having grown up in a courtroom and having seen the ugly side of life, I wasn’t sure if I’d be revisited by the horror nightmares with such gruesome murders. Darling relates police life and crimes committed the way I remember it. He develops a storyline that creates empathy for the protagonist and hoping Sgt.Hunter achieves justice in the end.
The Tipping Point is a well told tale,with an offering of complex characters.I see it as a great beach read,or a book to snuggle down with in front of the fire on a damp rainy day.It gives insight into organized crime and leaves you anticipating the next installment. I liked it, well done, David! 5*
September 16, 2021
Stephen King and William Faulkner both said that [to write a good book] you must murder your darlings. Well, Darling, David that is, he kills them all and then some. Everything is in check in (fictional) Arrow Point, Wyoming, pop about 130,000+. Basically a quiet town, until now, as the balance is about to go off kilter in THE TIPPING POINT. With their fingers on the scale is a ruthless team of killers the likes of which have not been seen since the Cousins Salamanca from BREAKING BAD and named Frank & Ernest of all things. It's like Axel F. said: that's a federal tax stamp, 'can't get no cleaner than that'. Before 'Red sky night, cop's delight' gets uttered, a breathtaking daisy chain of slaughter as inexhaustible as the horde of bad guys in a John Woo flick gets underway; the Hong Kong stuff, not Hollywood fluff.
Wading into the maelstrom is Noah Hunter, Sgt., a 20 year vet of the Arrow Point PD with a passing biblical likeness to the arch building image of the righteous man of book of Genesis fame. Not taking too many cues from the Book of Books, THE TIPPING POINT has more threads going on that point to the Cohen Bros.'s FARGO and Neal McCauley in HEAT. Rounding out the cast of protagonists are a shoutout to RIPTIDE and JAKE AND THE FATMAN (the accountant Joe Penny) and a deputy named Angie Dickinson (yes, Big Bad Mama!), the latter offering a good Police Woman counterpoint to the Hunter.
Nothing stays quiet in Arrow Point and nothing stays in Arrow Point. Deftly moving from Wyoming to the Windy City, Hunter goes the distance to figure out what is spoiling things in the Equality State. Noah soon finds himself toe to toe with a Syndicate-like organization, making THE TIPPING POINT ripple like a Donald Westlake Parker adventure, in particular THE HUNTER. Coming full circle, Noah Hunter's name seems far from a coincidence, and with 15 chapters to go, it's full frontal RAW DEAL, with Arnold's Mark Kaminski going to Chicago to dismantle the mob. Visceral, bloody, and fast paced, THE TIPPING POINT is primed to kick off a series of police procedural thrillers that'll tip the scale on fun, excitement, and action.
May 5, 2021
David Darling's "The Tipping Point" is a face paced, action-packed crime thriller that has the reader on the edge of their seat.
With no Homicide Division in small town Wyoming, Police Sgt. Noah Hunter becomes the lead officer investigating a series of murders. A nefarious person of interest wants him off the trail. Threats are made and realized. Spoiler? When his fiance is murdered, Noah falls back to his time in the U.S. Army, Infantry division. Consistently using an OODA loop type of mindset, Noah makes retribution and justice his mission. Twists and turns guides the protagonist to a dramatic conclusion.
As a fan of the thriller genre... I found this book hard to put down. David Darling keeps the pages turning by leaving each chapter wanting for more. "The Tipping Point" is the first in the Noah Hunter series that I'll be coming back to.
With no Homicide Division in small town Wyoming, Police Sgt. Noah Hunter becomes the lead officer investigating a series of murders. A nefarious person of interest wants him off the trail. Threats are made and realized. Spoiler? When his fiance is murdered, Noah falls back to his time in the U.S. Army, Infantry division. Consistently using an OODA loop type of mindset, Noah makes retribution and justice his mission. Twists and turns guides the protagonist to a dramatic conclusion.
As a fan of the thriller genre... I found this book hard to put down. David Darling keeps the pages turning by leaving each chapter wanting for more. "The Tipping Point" is the first in the Noah Hunter series that I'll be coming back to.
April 26, 2021
I will admit that I haven't read many Crime/Police thrillers, but Tipping Point by David Darling, is as good as any that I have read. Once I started reading, I couldn't stop. It is written in such a way that I had to keep reading to find out what happens next. Especially after that gotcha, plot twist moment that made me say "damn" out loud.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone that enjoys a good thriller. And I am definitely looking forward to the next Noah Hunter novel. Keep up the great work David.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone that enjoys a good thriller. And I am definitely looking forward to the next Noah Hunter novel. Keep up the great work David.
April 29, 2023
Book Review – I haven’t read many police/crime thrillers in my time, but this is one that I’m glad that I finally did! Whenever a twist in the storyline makes you shout “DAMN” out loud, then you know you’re reading a good crime novel. The Tipping Point is a good read! Author David Darling @david_darling_author did a great job in researching on how to write a good, organized crime thriller novel. He created a flawed hero in police sergeant, Noah Hunter, produced several complex organized crime criminals/family, honored the victims of the crimes in seeking justice and retribution and he cleverly made the location – Arrow Point, Wisconsin a character in the story. Mighty fine writing and great character development for a debut novel. I especially liked the fact that the story was not based around the typical New York City police detective trying to solve a crime. This was a Wisconsin small-town police sergeant that had a pair big enough to take on a nasty Chicago crime syndicate. The action scenes were also well done and strategically placed throughout the story. Hunter’s investigation of two brutal murders leads him to a well-organized crime family in Chicago where he’s left with no other options but to take them on. Darling’s story telling is edge-of-your seat, what’s going to happen next, tension-filled and intriguing. You would never guess that this is Darling’s debut novel. Again, this is a good read and worth reading as well as the second installment upon its release. Two thumbs up on the book cover artwork as well, it’s simple, classic and very eye-appealing in my opinion.
January 25, 2022
I found “The Tipping Point” to be well equipped with one of the best storylines I’ve read in a while. The plot twists and turns that keeps even the most hardcore reader on their toes. Will admit it kept me up late last night to see how it ends—I wasn’t disappointed. The characters are well developed without being a distraction—especially with the supporting characters. Noah Hunter is about to take over my favorite character slot from Jack Ryan, Jr.
Bottom line, David Darling has a new fan! Am waiting for the next in the series to get here later this week!
Bottom line, David Darling has a new fan! Am waiting for the next in the series to get here later this week!
August 31, 2021
Interesting
October 16, 2021
David Darling is a breath of fresh air with this police/crime thriller. His debut hits a homerun with the character Noah Hunter being forced into uncomfortable situations and discovering a mystery that he'll never forget. Hunter takes it in stride while staying true to his intentions of upholding the law. Darling tugs on the moral compass of Hunter, while keeping it simple and to the point. This is a refreshing take on a law enforcement crime thriller that the genre needs more of. Thankfully, we have David Darling to do just that.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews