Daughter of Darkness

    A beautiful young woman is found unconscious in an alley,with no memory of who she is or how she got there. When a mysterious impulseleads her to a cheap motel room containing a corpse, all the evidence points toher as the most likely suspect in the murder. The detective on the case, asensitive recovering alcoholic named Michael Coffey, falls in love with her andsets out to prove her innocence, despite the evidence. The book bounces aroundbetween Coffey's efforts to help the amnesiac (who turns out to be named Jenny)and glimpses of a madman, Quinlan, living out his sexual fantasies by way ofdrugs and hypnotism. Gorman (Guilty as Charged) keeps the pace swift andnavigates smoothly among the many subplots, but his characters, which he definesmostly by comparing them to various movie and TV stars, fall flat. The authordrops one bombshell at the end, but-because he simply informs the reader flatout rather than revealing the surprise dramatically-the bomb fails to explode,and the novel's resolution collapses into melodrama.