Light Before Day

Written by Christopher Rice

Narrated by Cole Ferguson

Adam Murphy wants to be a serious journalist. Unfortunately, he spends his days writing copy about underwear and abs for a gay lifestyle magazine. When a troubled young porn star brings him a tip about a recently deceased marine’s secret visit to an infamous pimp for underage boys, Adam is determined to break the story…until someone starts threatening his life.

Undeterred, Adam begins to unravel a deadly conspiracy involving runaway sugar daddies, salacious A-list parties, and three handsome young men who have vanished without a trace. Now he must enter the seedy underbelly of LA to find the truth behind their disappearance, as well as the disappearance of his ex-lover, Corey—who may have some deadly secrets of his own.

In this supercharged modern noir tale of sex, drugs, and revenge from New York Times bestselling author Christopher Rice, getting to the bottom of a scandalous story can be dangerous…if not downright fatal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Dec 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781501219849

Christopher Rice

New York Times bestselling author Christopher Rice is the son of author Anne Rice and the late poet Stan Rice. He lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews for Light Before Day

[Melissa Zeelie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I balanced on the edge of DNF and 5 stars, decided on four because although the plot was good, it felt like the author danced around the darkness and not giving us enough blood, gore and erotism to give me that wow factor. The narrator is new to me and his narration deserves four point five stars.

[Noah K · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wonderfully compelling mystery, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, and while I had theories it constantly kept me guessing.

[Mike P Wagner · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very enjoyable for a pretty dark thriller. I usually like police procedurals, so this is a bit different for me. Likable, believable main character, and an interesting - if somewhat bloody - story.

[presto_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Twenty something and openly gay, Adam Murphy has hopes of being a serious investigative reporter, but any attempts in his present job are frustrated by his boss. But troublesome events in the Los Angeles gay community soon take over, events that cause him to loose his job but at the same time open the way to a new opportunity as assistant to best selling author James Wilton. Wilton wants Adam to investigate these events as potential material for his next novel. Adam soon finds himself not just investigating but directly involved in a complex web of murder, internet pornography, blackmail, drugs and child abduction.I was a little wary of Christopher Rice, thinking maybe there was more hype than substance here, and when I started reading it seemed my impressions were confirmed, I could see no direction or reason, just dead ends. But then it all started to come together, and soon we were involved in an intricate and perplexing plot that gradually drew all these loose ends together. Adam proved to be a plucky, intrepid and likeable investigator, ready to reassess his interpretation of the facts as they unwound and at times proved his early deductions false - as they frequently did. So too I must reassess my view of the author, I really enjoyed this, finding it involving on more than one level; I definitely will be reading more of Christopher Rice.

[flouncyninja · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A struggling journalist named Adam gets wrapped up in a horrific ring of deception, murder and greed as he searches for a lost flame that mysteriously disappeared. All the while a woman searches for the man responsible for the accidental death of her mother during a meth lab explosion.Christopher Rice's first two books left indelible images in my mind, either due to the horrific nature of particular scenes (The Snow Garden) or because the characters seemed to jump out of the pages (Density of Souls). This one didn't have either of those things going for it. It was a decent enough mystery novel, if not a bit convoluted and overly complicated, but nothing came out of left field to surprise me or leaving me breathless.The writing itself is great, per usual, despite a tendency for characters to wander off and disappear for hundreds of pages at a time before wandering back in because they're suddenly important. The story of the woman searching for the cause of her mother's murder disappeared for so long that I forgot about it until suddenly the story jerks over to a convenience store somewhere far away from the bars and mansions of West Hollywood. Gay porn star Nathan gets Adam started on his horrific journey down the rabbit hole only to disappear until he's strategically needed 150 pages later. Perhaps it was due simply to the large number of characters that had a pivotal moment within the complex mystery that they couldn't all be featured regularly, but I still found myself looking back to remember who certain people were with they randomly reappeared.Once the two apparently convergent story lines merged, the story flew by. Caroline and Adam are perfect foils of each other, her violence and aggression balancing out his fear and morbid curiosity. The outcome wasn't completely predictable, due to the culprit's motive more than his actions.I was just left a little disappointed because Christopher Rice has written books that are still ingrained in my memory years later, and I don't think this one will be well remembered in a few months.

[ulfhjorr · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Light Before Day starts out slow and tries to build to something, but it skips right over being a page-turner and jumps straight into the implausible and over-done action. But what could have been a good mystery/thriller or could have been a good piece about the shady underbelly of the drug-induced party scene was instead turned into an almost-good story marred by pretentious attempts at being serious literature.

[kaysbooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Well, quite a page-turner, this one. Of course we're confronted with a hell of a lot of cliches, but who cares meeting an ex-drunk as a hero, drug-addicted gays en pedophile men when the story keeps you reading. Adam, the hero, quits drinking (finally) and starts to unriddle the mysteries about his short-term boyfriend who disappeared. It looks as if a lot of people got entangled in a mysterious web of sex, crime (but no rock'n roll - it's too gay for that).This really is an interesting read for a lazy Sunday (or every other day) and Rice knows who to build up tension. The only thing I hated were those odd and silly comparisons that probably were supposed to be literary and witty. Believe me, they are not! So, the lights on a boat just don't appear as if they just came from a Rembrandt painting... How far fetched is this.... ???But if you manage to leave out those little diversions and some superfluous descriptions, you will have a hell of a good time with this mystery story. I'm looking forward to read his next story.

[babydraco · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Chris Rice's fiction finally grows up. The thinly disguised author self insert is a journalist in LA this time, an alcoholic suffering from frequent blackouts. The New Orleans connection and the nutjob mother are both still there. Maybe in the next book, we can do without those? Maybe? Please? It's in the genre of LA detective stories, only a lot more gay. The story is set among West Hollywood's gay community, and exposes the horrifying truth about the consquences of the club scene's methamphetamine trend. Children are dying so other people can party. The protagonist sets out, with his mentor, a gruff (and straight) middle aged author of hardboiled detective novels, to find missing men, missing boys and expose a shocking secret involving a very wealthy man. His author friend is really quite amusing, a great foil for the narrator.The further into the plot you get, the more disturbing it becomes. Readers also get to watch the protagonist morph from a self indulgent, drunken loser to an independent, mature man who is able to care for someone even more helpless. Once again, Rice slips in a tiny bit of his knowledge of art history toward the end (watch for it, it's subtle this time). I will say however, that the plot is extremely convoluted and requires your total concentration to be able to keep up with it. I've read this book twice and I'm still not sure I totally understand everything that happened.