1994, Cork. Gardai Julia Harte and Adrian Clancy are called to a housing estate but what they find will haunt Julia for decades. As she encounters serial killer James Cox for the first time, things rapidly begin to escalate, as the killer seems to have Julia in his sights.

2024, and Julia Harte has disappeared to a remote village. A distinguished career of catching and studying killers is behind her, but the ghosts are still haunting her. When news arrives that Cox had died in prison, she entertains a brief hope that her nightmares might be over – only to be contacted by her old boss. Two dead bodies have been found in exactly the same circumstances as Cox’s first victims? Has the killer returned from the grace? Or has someone else started a new game?

Another new author to me – well, to anyone, as this is Amy Jordan’s first novel – and a slight diversion from my recent forays into more traditional mystery fiction.

I’ll be honest, the blurb might not inspire too much. The “serial killer has died but someone is killing in the same way” is probably Serial Killer Plot B (Plot A is just “there’s a serial killer”). What makes a difference here is the split narrative. We follow both the 1994 and 2024 investigations in parallel, with the author doing a good job in the present day narrative of masking the conclusion to the 1994 case. So we see two versions of Julia – the less experienced officer pushing her way into an investigation that has rapidly become very personal to her and the older, wiser version who is determined not to make the same mistakes. Her development between the stories – and in the two strands – is very interesting to follow.

It works very well. It’s a very readable book and Julia is a good focus for the story. There are a couple of good reveals in the two finales and a very interesting motive for the modern day killings.

I’m putting this caveat in my reviews at the moment – this isn’t a clued mystery, and the motives in particular, unless I missed something, seemed to come out of nowhere. So this does fit firmly into the thriller genre, despite having a whodunit element to the story. Not a bad thing, just so you know what you’re getting.

An interesting read – the split narrative is a good structure – so if you like this sort of thriller, do check it out. The Dark Hours is out on 30^th January 2025 from HQ stories. Many thanks for the review e-copy.