Darkhouse is a 2005 mystery-detective novel written by Irish author Alex Barclay and published by HarperCollins in the United Kingdom, and later in the USA, France and many other markets. It is the debut novel of pseudonymous former journalist Barclay and was both a Sunday Times and international best-seller.
Plot summary
The novel kicks off in New York City with the abduction of a wealthy couple's young daughter. The girl's mother Elise Gray is being tailed by Detective Joe Lucchesi, his partner Danny Markey and two FBI agents. The kidnapper Donnie Riggs calls Elise and directs her to a park. He lets the girl, Hayley, out of his car and she runs to her mother. Elise discovers that Hayley is strapped with explosives as she embraces her, but she is too late as Riggs presses the detonator, killing them both. Joe pursues the kidnapper and guns him down. Two days later, in a Nevada prison, inmate Duke Rawlins is distraught to learn of the death of Donnie, his childhood friend.
One year passes and Joe Lucchesi has relocated to a small town in Ireland called Mountcannon with his interior designer wife Anna and sixteen-year-old son Shaun. Joe has taken temporary retirement from the force, Anna is renovating an old lighthouse and Shaun is dating a local girl called Katie Lawson. At first it seems that their family life is idyllic but Anna has a dark secret. She had a secret affair with local drunk John Miller, a man now embittered at his wife having moved to Australia with his children. Joe's turbulent relationship with his father, Giulio, is highlighted as he travels over to the States to attend his second marriage. Giulio clashes with Joe over his career choice and moving his family to Ireland. To make matters worse, Katie disappears from the area leaving Shaun deeply upset. Meanwhile, in a parallel subplot, Duke Rawlins has been travelling around Ireland and has reached Mountcannon.
An investigation is launched in Mountcannon into Katie's mysterious disappearance. Her devastated mother Martha insists that her daughter was a happy-go-lucky teenager with many friends and a caring boyfriend; she had no reason to go missing. Shaun comes under suspicion as he was the last person to see her; Joe himself cannot help but think that his son is hiding something and even looks for some sort of clues in his bedroom. Shaun becomes indignant at his father taking on the role of investigator and suspecting him of withholding information. Joe finds himself seeing red herrings everywhere in the community. He questions Shaun's friend Robert Harrington about a scratch on his hand, much to Shaun's annoyance. He also sees John Miller as a possible suspect. Anna in the meantime has to deal with Joe asking her awkward questions about her involvement with Miller.
The locals conduct a search of the surrounding area to no avail. Local Sergeant Frank Deegan, hotshot D.I. Myles O' Connor and fiery garda Richie Bates question Mae Miller, the elderly mother of John Miller and mentally challenged school caretaker Petey Grant amongst others but come no closer to the truth. Joe does his own investigating, retracing routes that Katie may have taken and asks questions, however, his theories are dismissed by Richie who tells him to stay out of the case.
After a number of weeks, Katie's decomposing body is discovered in the forest near Shore's Rock, the lighthouse where the Lucchesis live. The post mortem results reveal that Katie had been strangled and beaten with a blunt instrument. With the community baffled by the brutal murder of such a popular teenager, the Lucchesi family begin to fall apart. Shaun is inconsolable over his girlfriend's death and Anna becomes increasingly paranoid about what Joe knows. She confesses to him that she had been seeing John Miller while they were engaged which makes Joe furious. Meanwhile, the authorities are told to pay particular attention to Shaun and also to Joe who had been seen removing evidence from the murder scene. The night after Katie's funeral, one of the locals has an altercation with Duke Rawlins outside the bar and finds a hawk gold pin after Duke flees. He shows it to a shocked Joe who recognises it as being the same pin that Donnie Riggs had in his hand when he shot him.