Sooo good! It’s hard to make me LOL in the same story where people are being hunted down to be killed and a child is in danger, but Viskic pulls it off. If you like crime fiction check out Australian writer Emma Viskic‘s Caleb Zelic series. Caleb is deaf, which gives his investigations a unique turn.

Darkness for Light isn’t out in the U.S. until June 2020, so you have plenty of time to read her first two in the series, Resurrection Bay & And Fire Came Down.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. Awaiting the paperback I ordered from Book Depository to complete the set. ( )

This is my third Caleb Zelic novel. I only occasionally read mysteries or detective novels. What kept me reading this series is Caleb, a deaf PI. It was fascinating reading about how he communicated with others. Also enjoyed the parts with his wife Kat. What I found tiresome is the number of times Caleb is beaten up and somehow mostly manages to avoid hospitals. He is so miserable much of the time other than the scenes with his wife and her family. Just needed breathers more than this book gave me. Again, I'm not a big mystery reader so this review may differ from others. ( )

Caleb Zelic is on a mission to get his life back on track. He is re-establishing his private investigations practice after the sudden departure of his business associate Frankie. He is attempting to repair his relationship with his pregnant wife, Kat, and is in therapy to try to manage his less favourable obsessive-compulsive personality traits. He has bought himself a super new blue-tooth hearing aid and is reconnecting with his friends in the Deaf Community. But most importantly, he is striving to think before he acts and make only good decisions. It’s all going swimmingly until he decides to take on a new case.

Having received a number of cryptic emails, Caleb arranges to meet the new client at the Collingwood Children’s Farm. When he stumbles upon the man’s body, he becomes entangles in the Federal and Local police investigations into the murder and related money laundering venture. Caleb is about to walk away from the mess when it becomes apparent that his former partner, Frankie, and her equally difficult sister, Maggie are heavily involved with the case. The violent abduction of Tilda, Frankie’s nine-year-old niece, thrusts Caleb firmly into the picture.

Caleb Zelic is a wonderfully flawed character, who manages to simultaneously infuriate and endear himself to you, with his believable flaws and innate kindness. His estranged wife Kat, and extended family of charming individuals are a real treat; as are the less endearing figures of Frankie and her associates.Viskic describes Melbourne’s inner city with pinpoint accuracy. You can feel the crisp cold air, see the dark, lonely alleys, and experience Caleb’s almost soundless world as easily as if you were there yourself. The plot builds smoothly, with many jagged edges, engaging sub plots, with juicy twist and turns. The chapters are short grabs, making it easy to read and hard to put down.

“Darkness for Light” is the third instalment in the Caleb Zelic series. It reads as a stand-alone novel, but I must admit that if I wasn’t reading this book for the purpose of review, I would have immediately put it down and sourced the first two. It’s not that I needed to, but rather because I wanted the whole story immediately.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story and loved pretty much everything about it. If you enjoy the works of Peter Temple, Garry Disher and Karina Kilmore, you will love “Darkness for Light” by Emma Viskic.

I received a free copy of this book through Sisters in Crime - Australia, in exchange for a fair and honest review. ( )

The third book in the Caleb Zelic series finds him working hard rebuilding his life and his business after the very heated ending of the previous novel, AND FIRE CAME DOWN. In the time since his on again / off again business partner Frankie has disappeared, but his ex-wife Kat, now pregnant with their child, is back. He's getting therapy for his problems (albeit frequently standing around in the Victoria Market), and he's reconnected with long time friends in the deaf community.

Newcomers to this series will find themselves having to sort through some rapid fire introductions to a very strong set of characters. Zelic is a private investigator, a deaf man with a complicated relationship with every woman in his life. Then there's Kat, his ex-wife, friend and artist, who along with her family are worthy of a novel in their own right, but Zelic is really is trying to work out what shape their future is going to take, while they both worry about the life of their baby due to past miscarriages. Finally there's business partner Frankie. She's harder to quantify, but goes from nowhere to be seen, to back in Zelic's life creating problems as always quickly. Things get ridiculously complicated when a prospective client is murdered; Frankie's sister is beaten up and her niece Tilda kidnapped. To say nothing of the lurking presence of a federal cop who may or may not be as dodgy, or not as dodgy, as Frankie. Nobody, including Zelic, can tell.

Caleb Zelic is one of those enduring crash bang sort of characters in Australian crime fiction that is capable of stuffing things up at lightning pace and resolving things at similar speed, somehow coming out of it with no clue how to make all the bad stuff never happen again. And not only is the reader happy to forgive him all of that, it's possible to actually like him for it. This is no slick, lone wolf, PI type, talking (or belting) his way into and out of trouble. He's much more of a car crash PI character who is wonderfully human, absolutely forgiveable and immensely likeable in a "come closer mate whilst I just slip my hands around your bloody stupid throat, then we'll decide if it's a hug or strangulation" way.

I admit there is always going to be a sneaking liking for an underdog in these parts, and obviously there's a level of vulnerability inherent in a character who is deaf relying on communication as a way of solving problems, but there's nothing manipulative or overtly sympathy seeking about Zelic. He beats himself up with a ferocity that allows the reader to spend a lot of time shouting "oh for goodness sake what are you doing now man" at the pages. Reading isn't often an interactive pastime, but that's just one of the pleasant surprises about this series.

A series that, in an ideal world, you'd be insisting people read from the start, although nothing's ideal these days, and what the hell. Read the Caleb Zelic series from the start, or start here, and read them backwards, individually, in any order, multiple times, anywhere, anytime. Just get on with reading these books.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/darkness-light-emma-viskic-0 ( )

This must have been just a bit too noir for my tastes, but I just found it a bit of a slog.

I don't actually warm to the central character Caleb Zelic, nor to many of the central characters he works with.

There is a lot of background material where I feel I have missed out on the full story, and that was actually how I felt when I read the previous title in the series.

The rating I gave it reflects the way I felt about the book, but others readers may well rate it more highly ( )