J. Scott Matthews

Confusing beginning in which one of the main characters apparently will soon die. This kind of destroyed the book for me. I hate reading about anyone dying, but to have it happen to the main character was worse. The beginning of the book is the future ...... so it hadn't happened yet. So why did I want to read on to find out what happened when I already knew. Anyway, the story began. In book one, I was enthralled by the mob and how it all works. I couldn't get overly involved though because I knew the main character was going to die. Book two confused me. I had forgotten the names of the main characters by the time I had arrived there. Then the names of the new characters came into play and they were similar to other names, and that's when I lost it completely. I had no idea who was who. Way too many similar sounding names for me to understand the story. It had good promise with the first book, except for the beginning.… (mehr)

In his novel In the Dark J. Scott Matthews explores the effects of PTSD on the life of soldiers after a war. After an 'accident', the details of which are unclear in the beginning and still somewhat hazy in the end, Nine is discharged from the military. A governmental program officially set up to treat victims of PTSD treats patients with an ominous 'procedure' after which their condition only deteriorates. Many patients start having strong hallucinations and some patients have a stroke and die. While the higher-ranking officials try to cover up what happens in their facility, ex-psychiatrist Grant Engel actually tries to help his patients. He escapes with two patients, only called Nine and Five throughout the novel.

Two plot strands converge in In the Dark. There is the story of Grant Engel, who loses his highly paid job, starts drinking and thereby destroys his family. When he loses his license as a psychiatrist and there seems to be no way but down, he is offered a job by an old acquaintance. He is supposed to interview patients that are treated for PTSD in a governmental program. Glad that his downward spiral finally stops, he jumps at the opportunity only to recognize that something is very wrong with the treatment of the patients. Since he is offered no details by his superiors, he feels he cannot do his job anymore and helps two patients escape before their evident death in the treatment facility.

Then there is the story of Nine, a patient in the PTSD treatment program, who wanders around town trying to make sense of what happened to him after he wakes up in a bar with blood and dead bodies around him. The line between reality and hallucination is often very blurry for Nine and he has trouble deciding what is real and what is not. For me, this is one of the strong suits of the novel. As a reader, you are constantly challenged to decide for yourself what to believe and whom to trust. J. Scott Matthews has done a good job in creating characters that seem very authentic. The pace of the novel is just fine so that you want to keep on reading and follow Nine in solving the mystery of what has happened to him.

I liked this novel a lot and would recommend it to anyone interested in the topic. 4 stars for an aspiring writer.… (mehr)