Published 4th July 2024 by Century.
From the cover of the book:
Meet Jessica Jones: a private investigator and retired super hero based out of Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, who goes from job to job as a hard living, rough talking, loner.And then a wealthy Upper East Side woman pays her a visit. Amber Randall is concerned about her twin sixteen-year-olds, Lark and Fox, who have acted and looked very different since they returned from spending the summer with their British father in the UK. She tells Jessica that her children have unnaturally perfect skin for teenagers and have lost all the tics and habits that made them who they were. They are not Lark and Fox, she tells Jessica. Something has happened to them.
To find out more, Jessica travels to Essex to talk to their father and once there meets Belle who is living a curiously isolated existence in a run-down farmhouse with her guardian Debra. Jessica knows that Lark and Fox had spent the summer with Belle―but can this unworldly teenager really be responsible for Lark and Fox's new personas?
Jessica soon discovers that, behind Belle and Debra, evil geniuses are playing a dangerous game with technology in order to make the world a "better place", not caring who gets hurt, maimed or even killed in the process. Can Jessica stop them from wreaking destruction on a whole generation of young people?
Nothing is certain in Lisa Jewell's gripping and most imaginative novel yet.
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Private Investigator (and retired superhero) Jessica Jones, is scraping together a living in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan - a living she mostly spends on the booze she needs to help her forget her past. An unusual case comes her way, just at the time she needs a sense of purpose to pull her out of the rut she has descended into.
Wealthy therapist, Amber Randall, asks for Jessica's help in finding out exactly what is going on with her children, sixteen-year-old twins Lark and Fox. Since the twins visited their British father in UK, they have transformed into languid creatures with perfect skin and odd habits, most unlike their former selves. Amber does not know what to make of it, but she is concerned that they are nothing like the people they were when they left.
Under cover as a would-be author, Jessica heads to a small village in Essex, where Lark and Fox's father is renovating a dilapidated Jacobean mansion with a tragic history. She learns that the twins have been spending time with a beautiful reclusive girl, called Belle, and her carer Debra, who keep themselves very much apart from the locals. Something feels wrong here, but quite what this has to do with the change in Lark and Fox is hard to see.
As Jessica begins to put together the pieces of this bizarre puzzle, she realises that there is a lot more at stake here than the fate of two affluent New York teenagers. Evil minds are about to launch their plans on the unsuspecting youth of the world, in pursuit of their damaged idea of 'perfection', and somehow Jessica has to find a way to stop them...
Breaking the Dark is the first novel in the brand new Marvel Crime series. I love a Marvel superhero movie for a bit 'suspension of disbelief' entertainment, but I am so glad that Marvel have actually taken the decision to explore the literary opportunities around the lesser known Defenders characters for the first three books to have been announced - featuring Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Matt Murdock (aka Daredevil) - as they are such interesting noir characters.
Best-selling psychological thriller author Lisa Jewell has taken up the brand for this first Marvel collaboration about troubled PI Jessica Jones, which, I must admit, did give me pause for thought. Jewell certainly knows how to write a page-turning, twisty plot about complex characters, particularly when it comes to psychologically damaged individuals, but how would she get on with her first foray into a genre so very different from her usual style, and could she pull off the lashings of noir vibes this project would need to make it feel authentic?
The story unfurls in two timelines, one following Jessica's slow-burn investigation into the bizarre case of the transformation of Lark and Fox, and the other, the eerie history of the evil geniuses at work on their misguided plan to make the world's young people 'perfect' (with a nice side-line in fame and fortune, naturally).
Jewell hits the spot-on 'noir' stride straight out of the gate, fully immersing you in the gritty mire of Jessica's psyche, and recreating her Hell's Kitchen stomping ground to perfection. Jessica is a complex character, weighed down with guilt, plagued by the responsibility of her powers, and hiding her vulnerabilities firmly behind a sardonic wise-cracking, tough-as-nails exterior. She is the Jessica Jones I know and love, and I am delighted that Jewell clearly knew the assignment here - you can feel the care she has taken in bringing her to life. There are other familiar faces from the Defenders canon who have a part in this story too, especially the big-man Luke Cage, and Jessica's ever-keen assistant Malcolm who really comes up trumps, but you do not need to be familiar with any of them to enjoy the book.
The parts of the story in rural Essex have a different feel, with a delicious sense of a spooky Hammer House of Horrors film about them. This is beautifully judged and fits the tone of Jessica's delving into historic tragedies, missing persons, and eccentric villagers spoken about in hushed tones. This works magnificently with what we learn from the flashback parts of the novel, which are bathed in occult themes and hints of bloodthirsty shenanigans that set your hair standing on end. I loved how Jessica is such a fish out of water in this environment too, which adds a touch of black humour to the horror setting.
With the mark of a genius storyteller, Jewell brings these distinctly different elements of the novel together with an over-arching concept that is gives a modern Black Mirror twist to the supernatural themes, blending blood lust, quantum physics, maniacal ambition, and earthly powers of the unfathomable kind, to make this bona fide Marvel universe fayre. She also explores some very timely themes about the world of social media, and the pressures on young people to pursue damaging notions of 'perfection'. And I am super impressed with the way she touches on so many shades of meaning around the title Breaking the Dark in the plot, and in Jessica's personal life.
I thoroughly enjoyed this rollicking read. Marvel, you knew what you were about in picking Lisa Jewell to take on the iconic Jessica Jones and kick off the series in style. I cannot wait for the next books to be published - a Luke Cage novel by S.A. Cosby and a Daredevil adventure from Alex Segura... and Lisa, if you ever pick up your pen to continue the story where this leaves off, then I am definitely there for it!
Breaking the Dark is available to buy now in hardcover, paperback, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you to Century for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.
About the author:
Lisa is a number one New York Times and Sunday Times author who has sold over ten million books worldwide and been published in over twenty-five languages.
She lives in north London with her husband, two daughters and a lovely dog called Daisy.
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