From Goodreads: Sometimes the past is best left buried.

Meredith King longs for escape. Life in Deer Run is stifling, the Amish town too small for a modern woman staying just to care for her ailing mother. When a friend enlists her help in clearing the name of an Amish boy whose decades-old death is still shrouded in mystery, she welcomes the distraction. But when a ghost from her own past reappears, there is suddenly a lot more at stake.

Zach Randal was always a bad boy, and their romance never had a chance. As charming as ever, he returns to town on the heels of a deadly new threat. Is Zach as dangerous as Meredith was always led to believe? Or is the attraction they both feel the only thing that can save them from harm?

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Marta Perry is a fabulous author whose mystery novels tend to leave me with my heart in my throat.  Search the Dark is no different, and I highly enjoyed this novel that juxtaposes Amish and modern life, save for one aspect.  The main character in this novel, Meredith, who is able to figure out so much, doesn’t have a shred of common sense or know when she is in danger.  Thus, instead of calling out for help, or reassessing events happening around her, she worries about being a burden or annoyance to others and basically continuously walks into death traps time and time again.  In other words, she is weak.  Now, this does spur the plot on, but it made me lose much respect for Meredith because she’s so helpless and keeps having to be saved by the male in her life, Zach.  And, while I really enjoyed Zach and Meredith together, and I really liked the overall novel, this just irked me to no end because Meredith seems to have a good head on her shoulders, but she just doesn’t use it.  She also lacks a backbone, and while this is addressed multiple times in the novel, meaning it was an intentional character flaw, it just didn’t make me, personally, like her or find her a worthy heroine.

But, the mystery aspect is there, and I highly enjoyed the anticipation and clues Perry gives to readers as the story unfolds.  I will admit I was surprised by some of the events in the novel and it wasn’t until the very end that I figured it out, though I had a small inkling based on one interaction that happens about halfway through the text.

Overall, this is a good read, but readers going in need to know that the main character, and many of the females in this novel, are going to make rash decisions that may leave you going ballistic.  Three and a half stars.

Harlequin has been extremely gracious in allowing me to read an ARC of this novel, via Netgalley, prior to its release on September 24, 2013.