The Animals After Midnight

Darby Holland #3

by Jeff Johnson

In this third novel in the Darby Holland Crime Novel series, Darby's past rises up to do more than haunt him. You can run, but in the information age you can only hide for so long. Midnight Rider Productions is a dark-web nightmare machine, headed by the one man who years ago drove Darby to hide in the seamy environs of Old Town and make his life there. But Darby left his own mark back in the day and the shadowy head of production has a grudge to settle. Rider has found him at long last and plans to make an example of him. Every dark secret of Darby's is exposed, every triumph reversed, every dream made real is set on fire, and as the Feds circle, smelling blood in the water, Darby has to run the most brutal rear-guard action in the history of crime-meets-crime and gamble that he has finally grown powerful enough, crazy enough, and hard enough to beat the Devil himself. Meanwhile his best friend and should-be lover Delia, is about to be married to someone with his own dark secrets. With the help of his friends new and old, Darby must save Delia and himself and the rest of the Lucky Supreme faithful as he plays one force against another with desperate brilliance in an epic conflict that rages through the dark underbelly of Portland, Oregon.

242 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 5, 2019

About the author

Jeff Johnson is the author of Tattoo Machine, The Lucky Supreme Trilogy, Deadbomb Bingo Ray, I Shop At Laney's, and more. Visit him at greatpinkskeleton.com and on Instagram @jeffjohnsonarium.

Reviews

[Melisende · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the third and final in the Darby Holland series and directly follows on from "A Long Crazy Burn".

Darby is being stalked; the Feds busted his partner; Delia is leaving; crazy Korean gangster tried to kill him; his tattoo shop was blown up; the high body count is scaring off the staff; and now he owns half the street ....

Someone from Darby's past is toying with him - who and why? With shades of "The Truman Show", Darby finds himself cast in a play not of his own making. What will be finally revealled as Darby tries to outwit the mysterious director by going off-script.

" ... I was going to tell them. the truth too. It was every bit as ugly as it could be .."

Not as much action and violence as the second in the series (I haven't read the first but can imagine action a-plenty), and after the build-up, the ending left me a little flat. But how do you successfully end a series .....

[Annarella · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was happy I discovered this series as it's really good.
An engaging and entertaining book, full of twist and turns, that never bores you.
I loved the style of writing and the well written characters.
I look forward to reading other installment in this series.
Recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC

[Bradley Valentine · Rating 4 out of 5]

You'll notice I marked my reaction to this Darby Holland entry very well. However, I felt that it a tad disappointing coming of Darby's second installment, which is probably the best book I've read in a while. Jeff really upped his game from book 1 going into book 2. Primarily he did it by developing the characters even further from the first one AND allowing them to dictate the direction and flow of the story.

Pretty basic, right? Sure. It's also not an easy trick when you've gone a mystery to propose and solve all while filling in a colorful, hopefully fresh adventure all under 300 pages or whatever it is (I had the Audible book).

So cutting Jeff some slack, yeah, this is another winner for him. Very much so. I'm just sorry it comes with the news that, erm, Jeff Johnson's AGENT somehow killed Darby Holland as a career path. Frankly, Jeff, I call B.S. on that. If you wanted to write more Darby Holland books, what? You'll be restrained by force? James Comes will put on his Crackerjack tin badge and set Congress against you by dint of his squad of geeks and their paper pushing voodoo? Could the creator of Darby Holland and Delia really have been run out of town by....bad wording on a contract???

Say it ain't so, Jeff. haha. I'm joking, guys.

OK, I'm HALF joking, guys. I read Jeff's new book, Deadbomb Bingo Ray. I suppose it'll please most of Jeff Johnson's fans. The problem for me is that it's not all that different from the Darby Holland books. Really it's a remix of the character except for taking out most of what made these books so cool. Deadbomb Bingo Ray (sigh... does that really have to be his name?...it's like when a suddenly famous musician freaks out and decides he's really a storyteller and dreams up a character in a concept album that arrives long past anyone cared and too conceptual for the people who just want to rock out with their c/ck out -- if you will, ha).

I sense I'll like Deadbomb Bingo Ray better in book 2. There is a lot of set up that always happens in Book 1. The character stuff will flourish in Book 2, I'm sure.

Still. I'll dream about the time we all had a detective series starring a criminal tattoo artist and his twisted little freak best friend who ...well, no spoilers. We have to make due with another "fixer," Deadbomb Bingo Ray.

BTW. I have a great sense of what should happen to Darby and Delia in book 4. Maybe I should write one of those fan stories. I won't because I have my own stories I'm not writing, haha.

That reminds me. I have to get published so one day I can click on GoodReads and listen to some jerk who claims to love me tear my books apart and tell me "it ain't what it used to be." haha.

I dig your work, Jeff, if you're reading this. I'm just disappointed we didn't get resolution before you moved on to Deadbomb Bingo Ray.

I'm hoping Deadbomb Bingo Ray and Darby Holland can meet. I suspect Delia will be too angry to be in Darby's presence. I sense that she would have left Darby with their, uh, no spoilers...their little collaboration. That collaboration would have been stewed in months of anger so that now, left alone, Darby feels like he's dealing with a complete and evil manifestation of Delia's rage both for Darby's role in what happened to (redacted) and for keeping it secret as book 3 closed. It would be like Darby is being chased down by the furies in a Greek potboiler.

Like the man said, I can dream about you, if I can't hold you tonight. Billy Ocean. Billy f'n Ocean.

[Dave McIlmoyl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I shouldn’t really write a review of a Darby Holland Crime Novel by starting with the last book in the series, but that is the book I’ve just read, and I’d have to read the others again to do a decent review. I discovered the world of Darby Holland and the Lucky Supreme tattoo parlor in Portland’s Old Town a few years ago. The Lucky exists in the seedy underbelly of Portland. Darby has the coolest tattoo place in the country, but he has a dark past. He is constantly tailed by an obscure branch of some federal crime agency but always manages to outwit them. There is an endless cast of characters moving in and out of the Lucky. Darby is rich now, from serious escapades from the last book but, like any criminal, he has to keep the bulk of his wealth in cash, in a storage locker. He now has a share of a number of businesses so he is sort of legit now and that is causing an existential crisis for him. With his spider senses beginning to tingle, Darby comes alive again as he realizes someone is stalking him. The book goes at breakneck pace and ends with Darby on the run from the police after he is set up by an evil psycho from his past. I really should read the earlier books again as they are fast paced and rich with dark word pictures describing the rain, the sleazy part of Portland and it’s cast of characters. Do yourself a favor and start with Lucky Supreme: A Darby Holland Crime Novel. Read them in sequence and then, like me, you will be waiting for book 4 to see what the hell happens.

[Dotty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another excellent book in Johnson’s Darby Holland Crime series, this is Book #3. I highly recommend these books, but it’s important to read them in order - to get a feel and an understanding of Darby & his twisted world.

I discovered Jeff Johnson completely by accident. I saw a review of a book called ‘Everything Under’ by Daisy Johnson, it sounded good, so I ordered it.

What I got instead was ‘Everything Under The Moon’ by Jeff Johnson. Totally my error - but I absolutely LOVED his book & I ending up ordering his Darby Holland Crime series and I’ve loved every one. Please note: I am NOT normally a lover of crime fiction, but his writing and his wild characters are so horribly evil, yet comical and compelling. These books are great fun to read, pure escapism. One blurb I read described Jeff Johnson’s books as “the literary equivalent of Quentin Tarantino directing a season of Portlandia with the spirit of Charles Bukowski consulting.”

P.S. I did eventually read ‘Everything Under’ by Daisy Johnson. Daisy & Jeff’s books could not possibly be any less alike, but her book was great too. 🤣

[Justin Isla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good overall. Having read the other two books in the series, I was definitely interested in reading this one. While I enjoyed it, like the end, which to me felt a bit rushed and contrived. Aside from that, a pretty fun read.

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing really happened for the first 25%, and then the ending was rushed and felt like an incomplete cliff-hanger. Still fun, still a quick read, but I’d hoped for more...

[Jamie Prawdzik · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5