Reviewed by Keith Mbuya for Readers' Favorite

John Darque and Carl Henderson, a lethal pair of snipers for a special security unit in the United States, had been deployed by their superior Curt Smith on a small mission. Perhaps if John, alias Chadeux, had known the whole operation was a setup, he would never have agreed to be out on that night with his best friend Carl, alias Casper, because while he narrowly survived death, he lost Carl. Some powerful Chinese government official had declared a hefty reward for anyone who would kill the pair. Since whoever was after the reward was convinced the pair was dead, John decided to go into hiding and he then started a secret organization whose objective was to maintain the balance of power in the world. However, John does something that triggers the Chinese government official to believe that John is still alive. What follows is a news headline about a killing at the southern US border. The group responsible for the killing leaves a signature at the scene that seems to be very familiar to John. What exactly is the signature? Will there be more attacks? Are any of these linked to the Chinese government official? Or is it all a terrorist group operation? Find out more in Steve Burkart’s The Darque Side.

If you enjoy reading thrillers or mystery/suspense novels, you will love The Darque Side. Steve Burkart writes his story in a demandingly interesting way. The complex sentence structures and choice of words may make the story a little hard to follow at times, but he compensates for this with a mind-blowing plot. Steve insightfully tells his story, creating puzzles and then giving bits of clues as pieces of the puzzles create wonderful twists. I found this an ingenious way of challenging me to keep up with his dynamic way of thinking. Rather than stating a character’s traits, Steve Burkart steadily builds his character’s personality as the plot progresses. This created a strong bond between me and the characters. I even marveled at how attached I had become to some characters in the book. For instance, I loved John Darque and found his dog Bill irresistibly adorable and I really enjoyed the humor in the book. There are many characters in the plot and the author writes the story switching between each of them, but he aligns his ideas consistently and the story flows perfectly. I loved The Darque Side.