Are You Afraid of the Dark? (novel)
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Are You Afraid of the Dark? is a 2004 novel by bestselling thriller writer Sidney Sheldon.
| Author | Sidney Sheldon |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Thriller |
| Publisher | William Morrow, New York |
| Released | 2004 |
| Pages | 337 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-06-055934-9 |
[edit] Plot summary
"Are You Afraid of the Dark?" tells the story of two beautiful widows, brought together after their husbands are among the victims of a mysterious series of deaths and disappearances related to Kingsley International Group (KIG), a think tank involved in military and environmental research.
They have to protect themselves against unknown enemies while trying to solve the mystery of their husbands' deaths. The head of the company, an industrious man named Tanner Kingsley, took over the think tank after his brother Andrew who once headed it had been ailed by an accident caused by a government project his brother Tanner had pushed him into.
Tanner had secretly been hoping that his brother would approve of his ideas to bring their think tank to a higher power than just helping 3rd world countries. During that time, Tanner had been seeing a woman he begins to refer to as Princess. They fall in love, but Princess' lust for riches and power matches those of Tanner. Unfortunately, he can not provide her with this for now, so she leaves him for a more powerful man. Andrew's death was expected, but he survived Tanner's attempt to murder him. Tanner handed him a suit during the experiment with a microscopic hole in it.
The experiment was part of a larger experiment to learn to control weather. The two widows, Diane Stevens and Kelly Harris, were married to members of KIG who discovered that the think tank had managed to create PRIMA, a weather controlling program. They uncovered Tanner's plot to use the power of the weather over countries to gain a ransom from any part of the world in order to become more powerful. Both men tried to meet with a woman named Senator Van Luven and died along the way.
Near the end of the book, it is discovered that Van Luven IS Princess. She married another man and divorced him to take half of his money. Tanner and Princess tell this to Andrew who slowly regains memory of what Tanner did to him 7 years earlier. Andrew became much slower and duller since then, so Tanner abuses him throughout the book during the time that they spend in his office, plotting to kill Diane and Kelly. Andrew remembers what Tanner did to him just before Tanner tells him to press a specific button on PRIMA 3 times at 6 o'clock.
Whether or not he pressed it, Tanner had rigged the machine to explode at that time anyway, knowing very well of another PRIMA he had built, many miles away. As he and Princess fly to the 2nd PRIMA, Andrew tampers with the weather to destroy them, then presses the machine's button 3 times. Diane and Kelly hear of this on the news while at a boarding house for women who had been abused, run by Kelly's friend. The story ends very abrubtly, but with many twists during the process.
[edit] References
| Preceded by The Sky is Falling |
Sidney Sheldon Novels 2000 |
Succeeded by None |
| Sidney Sheldon's novels | |
|---|---|
|
1970s: The Naked Face — The Other Side of Midnight — A Stranger in the Mirror — Bloodline |
|
| Non-Fiction | |
|
2000s: The Other Side Of Me |
|
