When All Light Fails

June 1, 2021
Lovers and former Pennsylvania State Troopers Ryan DeMarco and Jayme Matson work to establish the paternity of a child no one's much wanted until now, when she's wanted in all the wrong ways. The sudden, violent resolution of the cliffhanger ending of No Woods So Dark as These (2020) leaves DeMarco, Jayme, and State Trooper Daniella Flores licking the very different wounds they received in the encounter and Silvis in no hurry to present them with a new case. When a client does approach them to do some private investigation, his request seems almost timid. District Court Judge Emeritus J.D. Morrison has gotten a letter from 9-year-old Emmaline Barrie of Branch Township, Michigan, asking whether he's her father. Could DeMarco discreetly procure a DNA sample from Emma so that Morrison, who'd never heard of her before, can determine which of the three men who'd spent an eventful night with Jennifer Barrie 10 years ago is her father? DeMarco accepts the case, packs his RV, and heads with Jayme to Michigan, where they're both entranced by the girl, whose mother's rapid decline from suspected Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease has sent her to the hospital, where she's in a medically induced coma, and left her daughter in the custody of her irresponsible, alcoholic Grandma Loey. But because they're more and more troubled by the judge's demand that they keep their mission secret in order to avoid compromising the three candidates for fatherhood, DeMarco decides to cancel his agreement with Morrison and go to work pro bono to answer the same question on Emma's behalf. It's a bighearted decision with disastrous consequences. A soulful, deeply felt story less invested in the mystery at hand than in the mysteries of the universe.

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June 28, 2021
At the start of Silvis’s elegiac if slightly overstuffed fifth and final outing for Pennsylvania PI Ryan DeMarco (after 2020’s No Woods as Dark as These), DeMarco survives being shot in the chest during an ambush outside an abandoned mill where he’s been lured by an old adversary, Daksh Khatri. Meanwhile, state police officer Daniella Flores, who has rushed to DeMarco’s rescue, suffers a serious leg injury when the fleeing Khatri rams her car with his. While in the hospital, the former state police sergeant waxes philosophical as he reviews various cases he has worked over the years. Daniella, who’s in the same hospital, and his devoted girlfriend, Jayme Matson, are much on his mind. After DeMarco recovers, a judge seeks his help determining the paternity of a child the judge thinks may be his. Jayme joins DeMarco on the long path to the bloody and tragic resolution. As usual, Silvis delivers crisp action sequences, but most memorable are DeMarco’s long, ruminative digressions that sum up the career of a complicated, honorable man. Readers will be sorry to see the last of him. Agent: Sandy Lu, Book Wyrm Literary.

July 30, 2021
In the fifth Ryan DeMarco novel, the retired cop really isn't interested in doing any more private-investigation work. But when a little girl asks him to help her find her daddy, well, what choice does he have? When disaster strikes, DeMarco will stop at nothing to find justice. Silvis has this way of jumping right into the story--the book begins with DeMarco narrowly escaping a potentially deadly situation--that pulls readers into the book. Ryan DeMarco, too, is a very interesting character: not just your typical ex-cop-with-a-past, but a vividly realized, robust, and abundantly human character. Not exactly sunshine and birdsong to start with, the novel becomes increasingly dark as DeMarco digs deeper and deeper into the cause of a heartbreaking tragedy, and we wonder: what exactly is this man capable of? Silvis has published nearly twenty books since his debut in 1984, and he's been twice nominated for a Hammett Prize for crime fiction (one of the nominations was for the first DeMarco novel), but he isn't a household name. Perhaps this hard-edged, smartly plotted novel will raise his profile.

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