Absence of Light by Zoe Sharp

Absence of Light is a novella by Zoe Sharp, featuring her protagonist Charlie Fox.  In Absence of Light Charlie is providing protection services to a humanitarian search and rescue group, while also investigating possible criminal activity by the organization.


I enjoyed this novella.  I really liked the early Charlie Fox novels, but the last few I haven't enjoyed as much... perhaps due to the plot circumstances with Sean Meyer, but I think also some of the things I liked about the first novels have been decreasing as Ms. Sharp writes more novels and the character of Charlie develops.


Absence of Light, like almost all of the Charlie Fox novels, uses the flashback technique to plunge the reader right into the action.  Just like Shell Scott, by Richard S. Prather, most of the Charlie Fox adventures start with her in the heat of action, or suffering an injury and reflecting back on how she got to this point.  Used well, it can be an effective technique to start things off with an exciting first chapter and build up goodwill for some exposition immediately thereafter, while building suspense about how things must transpire to reach that point.


It needs to be used carefully though, because it can also have the effect of limiting suspense (since you know certain characters must be alive when the flashback catches up to current events) and sometimes giving clues to the outcome of the mystery.  It's actually the latter point that I think trips up a number of authors.  By trying so hard not to reveal clues in the initial scene, or in the flashback, sometimes the narration becomes awkward, unrealistic, or seems as though the initial scene is forced into the novel.


It can also be tricky for authors to transition back to present time when it comes time to bring the flashback to a close and resolve the initial suspenseful event.


As I said, Richard S. Prather does it well, and in many of her novels, so does Zoe Sharp.  In Absence of Light she uses an embedded flashback, so within the flashback Charlie flashes back to how she got to that point.  It's actually pretty smoothly done.  And she avoids pitfalls of bringing the flashback to a close by ending the novella with an epilogue once the flashback catches up to the present.


It's more like the old style of Charlie Fox that I enjoy.  Some action, a mystery, some cleverness by Charlie (that's always the part I like best).  I liked the setting, and thought the tie-ins to Parker, Sean and the ongoing plot points were well done and subtle enough that a non-series reader could enjoy the story without full knowledge of the relationships. 


Ms. Sharp describes the novella as a bridge between the Charlie Fox novels, and perhaps it will be, but it also stands on its own very nicely.