Dark Eye - Page 2

When Susan emerges from the detox center still denying any real "problem" with alcohol, she finds that the teenage niece she's had living with her has been put into a foster home. Susan is enraged by this, and in her self-delusion cannot understand why the social services department would find her home an unfit living environment for her niece, Rachel. Her pain, embarrassment, and anger all lead back in a cyclical pattern to the bottle she claims to have forsaken, but can't seem to shake.

Enter the man police come to call "Edgar." He's come to believe that he can usher in some sort of divine transformation by the purification of ritual murder, and his targets are young, disaffected women – something Vegas seems to have in spades. It's fertile ground for his coldly calculating exploits – crimes that shock even the jaded citizens of Sin City. When the first girl is found horrifically "purified" and buried alive, the police know they have a problem on their hands, a problem that only multiplies exponentially as mutilated corpses start turning up all over.

The police department hires Susan back as a "consultant" to help develop profiles of the killer. The police chief isn't certain that Susan's addiction won't still get the better of her, and he has no plans to give her back both a gun and a badge until she proves to the contrary. But "Edgar" proves as elusive as he is insane, an effective killing machine who always seems to stay one step ahead of the police, taunting them with cryptic, coded messages that they can't seem to decipher.

It is into this tense cauldron that Bernhardt introduces another intriguing character in Darcy, the twenty-something autistic son of the local police chief. Unlike the autistic characters seen in many cinematic portrayals (such as Dustin Hoffman's character in Rain Man), Darcy is a much more fully established person. His autism separates him from the rest of humanity and precludes some levels of normal interaction, even as his incredible recall of details and his ability to decipher codes allows him insights that most people miss. Unintentionally, Darcy becomes a sort of autistic Sherlock Holmes, using his talents to assist the police in their efforts to understand – and capture – "Edgar."

Article Author: W.E. Wallo

W.E. Wallo is a book and movie junkie whose writings have appeared in a variety of print and online publications.

Visit W.E. Wallo's author page — W.E. Wallo's Blog