Review: Darkness on the Edge of Town by Adam Christopher

 

My daughter and I have finished watching season 2 and I got to read this. I have the watch and reading order and I am loving this order. It is immersing me more into the show. I also started this when I had three episodes left of season 2 and I got spoiled, so I definitely learned my lesson for the next book which I currently have out from my library.

This book is all about Hopper and his time as a detective in New York post his Vietnam service. He is telling his story to Eleven in the cabin in the woods. This takes place at Christmas time two months after the end of season 2. So IF YOU KNOW YOU KNOW!!! If not, then I will not spoil you. She is asking questions, wanting to know more about him. She asks about New York and pulls a piece of evidence from his New York box that is essentially the whole book.

The only connections to Stranger Things is Hopper and Eleven and the cabin. No other characters and anything in Hawkins. Hopper tells Eleven how he got his new partner who was a Cuban woman from Queens and they get handed this case where the killer is leaving white cards with shapes and the shapes are also on the bodies. After working on the case for a couple weeks, it gets taken from them by the feds because it turns out that the victims were part of a special task force who are looking for someone who calls himself the saint and is targeting vulnerable veterans.

Hopper and his partner Delgado decide to still work on the case even though they can both get in trouble, but Hopper gets found out and gets offered to go undercover. If not, his wife and his daughter Sarah will not be seeing each other again. 

Hopper goes deep undercover and it is all disturbing and very upsetting that this villian served his country and then tossed aside by said country and he is taking out his revenge with other vulnerable Vietnam service men. 

I ended up giving this a 4 out of 5 stars. I wanted more of present day other than the story telling and I was annoyed by all of the descriptions of the characters clothing when they were introduced. Paragraph upon paragraph and I was skimming it. All of it took me out of the story because it did absolutely nothing for the story. Agent Gallups slicked back hair that was so glossy it could have blinded someone did nothing to fight agaist The Saint.

The next book I have to read is Runaway Max and that comes before season 3.