Today I’m reviewing The Dying of the Light: With Time to Kill Book Two by Frank Ferrari!

Here’s the blurb

“Jamie McKinnon’s mum vanished on a Wednesday afternoon.”

How can you save somebody else if you can’t save yourself?

When widow and young mother Stephanie McKinnon’s disappearance in the Scottish Borders is escalated to the Major Investigations Team, it couldn’t have come at a worse time for DCI John Waters. Pulled into a complex case while dealing with his own torment, his inner demons threaten to consume him.

Garry Plumb, meanwhile, is building a life he never thought possible – a thriving company, a fiancée he adores, and a future that almost lets him forget what he is. But the beast inside hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s just waiting for a reason to come out – and it finds several.

Garry tells himself that each kill is righteous, but there’s no escaping that the voice talking him into it doesn’t sound like his own conscience. This voice is familiar, and monstrous.

Waters’ desperation to reunite the missing mother with her little boy grows and, knowing things nobody else does, he turns to Garry. The only question he needs to answer is: can Garry’s past save their future, or has he become the very thing he once destroyed?

Review

We are back with Garry Plumb. When we last saw Garry, he had just rid himself of Billy Blunt — who turned out to be the most vile, despicable person ever.

The only good thing about Billy is that he taught Garry how to travel back in time via a carrier, an organic mass. He can’t just travel to any time, though — that would be far too easy — but I love how the author has crafted the mechanics around it all. It’s fascinating.

The scene is set: a young woman has gone missing, and a young boy is left wondering where his mam could be. In walks DCI John Waters, who we’ve met before. From the off, I was hooked. Is Garry connected? Will he be? How? Why? So many questions start to form immediately.

Garry has put right the wrongs of his past, and he’s now a happy man with everything he could want — but that peace is about to be shattered.

Here’s where the story becomes quite clever. There are multiple threads running at once, all of which connect beautifully in the end. We quickly learn Garry’s fiancée is struggling, Garry himself has a small problem at work, and the DCI has his own demons — and that’s without the missing woman on top of it all.

Their lives intertwine, never overshadowing one another or feeling out of place, but instead keeping you effortlessly on tenterhooks.

When we reach the hard‑hitting and gruesome disappearance, we see DCI Waters shattered and lost… and that’s when things click. I won’t spoil it, but there is a way for Garry to help — to help everyone — but in order to fix things, the beast inside him needs to resurface.

I never truly think Garry is evil; rather, he’s a man forced to confront a situation no one else ever could. What would we do if we had the chance to remove obstacles in our past? Remove those who hurt us — or those who will hurt us and others? It’s a morally grey area, and Garry continues to battle with it. But his secret might be the key to saving a woman’s life — and helping DCI Waters too.

Plot‑wise, it’s spot on. There are multiple directions for the story to travel, and the pace flows superbly. You can really tell the author has planned it all — the detail is astounding.

Development‑wise, Garry grows, and so do other characters like DCI Waters. It was great to see them battle their biggest foes: themselves. I also loved how the author humanised the police, showing the connections the team investigating the disappearance have with each other — the friendship, the respect.

Oh, and it would be remiss of me not to mention that ending. The twists. Oh my bloody god, that was good. I do wonder if it was the author’s plan all along or if it came to fruition naturally as the story flowed. Either way, it was shockingly good.

5/5 Stars

To find out more why not head to the authors website, Goodreads or ask any good bookshop to get you a copy!