BY ANNIE HOLLER
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN
BEAUTY — More than three decades after Shaun Sweeney first imagined a murder mystery as a Martin County teenager, the story that stayed with him through adulthood has finally become a novel.
Sweeney, a 1999 graduate of Sheldon Clark High School, published his first novel, “A Familiar Darkness,” in July. The mystery thriller draws on the Eastern Kentucky communities where he grew up, along with elements of his own experiences and people he has known.
“The idea for the story goes all the way back to 1993,” Sweeney said. “I first came up with it when I was still a teenager, and it stayed with me for more than 30 years.”
Sweeney spent most of his life in Martin County, apart from time serving in the U.S. Army. His background includes work and training in information technology, law enforcement and criminal justice studies, and computer forensics.
He had once hoped to pursue a career in law enforcement. Although his life ultimately took a different direction, his interest in law enforcement and true crime remained and eventually found its way into his fiction.
Sweeney began working on the novel years ago but could devote only limited time to it. After health issues prevented him from continuing to work, he returned to the story in earnest and completed the book.
“The story itself changed quite a bit through the years, as I got older, matured and gained more life experience, but the basic idea remained,” Sweeney said. “When I finally wrote the finished novel, I incorporated pieces of my hometown, my experiences and aspects of friends and family into the fictional world of characters.”
“A Familiar Darkness” follows a detective investigating a series of murders committed years apart and a killer no one fully believes exists.
When the detective’s former partner is found murdered inside an abandoned sheriff’s substation, the crime bears the same disturbing signature as three unsolved deaths from the past. But this time, the killer has left more than a body. Evidence reveals the detective’s partner had been hiding corruption, stolen money and connections to a dangerous man believed to be dead.
As the detective follows the trail through abandoned buildings, buried police secrets and forgotten coal mines, the investigation becomes increasingly personal. The killer seems to know the detective’s memories, his methods and the people he loves. He enters the detective’s home, watches his family and leaves behind evidence that should be impossible.
With his career collapsing and his daughter in danger, the detective must uncover the truth before the killer completes his final lesson.
But the closer the detective gets, the more the case forces him to confront a terrifying question: How well does he truly know himself?
The book also contains a particularly personal connection for its author. Sweeney designed the cover himself using technology to help create the finished artwork, and the two figures depicted on it represent him and his daughter, Cherokee.
“Our names are also used for the two main characters in the book,” he said.
For Sweeney, who is a husband, father and grandfather, seeing the story he first conceived as a teenager finally become a published book marked the realization of a goal more than 30 years in the making.
“A Familiar Darkness” is available in paperback and Kindle formats on Amazon. Patrons can also check out copies at the Martin County Public Library and Rufus M. Reed Public Library.
Sweeney is available for local book club appearances and book signings. Readers may contact him through his “Shaun Sweeney – Author” Facebook page.
“I’d love to receive feedback from those who purchase and read my book, and welcome your correspondence,” Sweeney said.