Darkness the Color of Snow audiobook

I mean how much of any one guy belongs to himself and how much belongs to the team? I mean we’re all free individuals, only we’re not. We can’t just do what we want, I mean, look, I can drive a hundred and ten down the wrong side of the road because I’ve got free will, no? No. Something of me belongs to the world or the country or the town or something. I mean I have to do what’s best for it. I mean I have to. I’m not a hundred percent free. Add that part of myself that is free is that way because of the town or country or whatever. When rookie cop Ronny Forbert pulls over his old buddies for speeding, it should have just been a pain in the neck. Instead, the leader of the pack, well past inebriated, refuses to accede, struggles to avoid being cuffed, falls into the icy road and winds up a prime sample of road pizza when a speeding vehicle launches him head-first into the back end of his own jeep. The cop did nothing wrong. The road stain created his own demise. Scratch one asshole. Addition by subtraction. Right? Not so fast. Righteousness be damned. There are opportunities to be seized, agendas to be taken care of, and if a decent rookie officer is in danger of being gutted in the process, well, hey, that’s just business, nothing personal. Thomas Cobb - from The ExaminerLydell, New York is a remnant of what once was, an aging rust-belt town with its best days in the rearview. Local manufacturing has left for cheaper pastures, taking with it large volumes of hope. The mother’s house is a little north of the grandmother’s. That makes it a little more upscale. When he gets there, there’s a car parked in the middle of the front lawn, minus hood and engine, and the shingled house is in need of paint or stain, but the porch isn’t buckled. It’s what passes for upscale in these parts. Police Chief Gordy Hawkins may be a bit of a relic as well. Not just for being a prime candidate for retirement, but for maintaining some sense of honor, decency and community in a world of me-ism and values that do not look past the next quarter. He had brought Forbert in to the force, rescuing him from a youthful wrong turn, and maintains a fatherly connection to the young man. Chief Gordy is an extremely engaging character. I was very much reminded of Robert Taylor as Longmire, or why not double down with Jeff Bridges?Martin Glendenning, president of the town council, a lawyer, and as oily a character as you are likely to encounter, is a different sort. Police? We doan need no steenking police. He has been trying to get rid of the local PD for some time, and turn over policing responsibilities to the state. He worships at the altar of tax cuts, and not having too much local police authority around, poking into his questionable business dealings would be a lovely part of that. “We’ve become the enemy,” Pete says. “They resent that our service isn’t free. They don’t see what we do for them. They only see that they have to pay us. We’re so far below cable TV and Internet porn, they can’t even see us anymore.”“There’s a whole new ideology that government, in any form, is an unnecessary evil,” Gordy says. “There’s nothing that’s looked at without suspicion. Used to be, everyone kind of pulled together. Now it’s everyone pulling in separate directions. The story of Officer Forbert’s travails, particularly his growing self-doubt, and the portrait Thomas Cobb paints of this small town, are compelling in and of themselves. Cobb, the author of Crazy Heart among other works, knows how to make characters real, knows how to make you feel for them, and knows how to portray place. This is a very moving tale. He is most at home writing about his beloved southwest and has great affection for the cowboy. It is not hard to see in Darkness… a small town sheriff up against the corrupt eastern bankers, particularly when the baddies employ local thugs to do some of their dastardly deeds. But the location speaks to a more contemporary form of conflict.The larger element here is Lydell as a microcosm of the nation and the time, the conflict between individual wants and civic, communal responsibility. How do communities respond to tough times? Where does community end and the individual begin? Cobb is not offering solutions to what ails. He has written a story about how an unfortunate event is twisted by the unscrupulous, vain and greedy to serve their own ends, to the detriment of the rest of us. He offers praise of honor, seeing clearly that the values of a bygone age are threatened by the new age of self. Chief Gordy is a beacon of light in a bleak landscape, a true hero in place where winter has already arrived. Review first posted – 4/17/2015Publication date – 8/18/2015=============================EXTRA STUFFLinks to the author’s personal and FB pagesA short story by Cobb – I’ll Never Get out of This World Alice

Ronny Forbert is a rookie patrolmen on a small rural police force. On a cold winter night, he's parked in his ancient Crown Vic, running radar, when a vehicle comes down the road, speeding and with one headlight out. Ronny hits the lights and gives chase, only to have his heart sink when he recognizes the vehicle as it pulls to the side of the road.The driver is Matt Laferiere. In the Jeep with Matt are three other members of his posse; all four are drunk and stoned. Ronny knows this crew all too well because he used to run with them. At one time, he and Matt were close to being best friends, but then Ronny saw the light and determined to make something of himself. He joined the police force and now is face-to-face with an ex-friend who has become his bitter enemy.Ronny tries to play it by the book, but Laferiere is having none of it. He resists arrest; the two men struggle and a tragedy occurs. Ronny is briefly suspended from the force as a matter of form, but it seems clear that he did nothing wrong. But this is a small town, down on its heels, and there are people in town with their own agendas who attempt to exploit this situation for their own advantage. Ronny Forbert gets caught up in the middle of it all and before long, things have escalated in a way that no one wanted or could have foreseen.This is a beautifully written, very atmospheric book. The setting is very well detailed and the characters are deftly drawn. The story has the ring of larger truths and the reader feels if he or she has been helicoptered into this community to watch this tragedy play out all around you. A great read.

I enjoyed the ride! Full of everything I look for in a book on a 5 star level. From the first nail biting chapter to the unbelievable and unexpected end, I was page turning like mad! Set in the winter with some "going back into the past", I felt, saw, heard, tasted everything the author intended for us in this endeavor.Set in a town, I would hope to never live in or encounter. Full of morons with the exception of the police department. A young cop "rookie" (with an "if'y" past) becomes the talk of the town. On Tv, in the newspaper and deff in the town hall meetings. What happens to this cop is very unfair and I totally felt for him the whole time. A terrible accident involving this young cop and a bunch of punks he pulls over one snowy night, changes the town and his life forever. I hope this doesn't ever happen in real life, but it is very possible, given the right kind of people with the right kind of personality.I highly recommend this!

What really did happen the night of the accident?Ronny kept asking himself over and over if it was his fault or if Matt caused his own death. Ronny and Matt had been friends throughout high school but now Ronny was a police officer and Matt was still the trouble-making kid he had always been. DARKNESS THE COLOR OF SNOW takes the reader from present day back to Ronnie and Matt's high school days letting us in on their antics and how they fell apart and where they are today.DARKNESS THE COLOR OF SNOW also touches on the topic of small towns and the way corruption can occur with its officials.I truly did not like Martin who was the head of the town council. He was a corrupt official who was doing illegal things but made himself appear to be the good guy to the public.Ronny was a sweet kid who seemed to always get the short end of the deal. Matt was not a nice person and someone who caused Ronny grief during their teenage years as well as their adult years.DARKNESS THE COLOR OF SNOW was a tense read, but very good. I am actually going to classify it as a psychological thriller. The situation and the characters kept me glued to the pages but also had me nervous for the decisions the characters made.I was trying to figure out the significance of the title of DARKNESS THE COLOR OF SNOW and came up with the idea that the book had dark things happening in the small town of Lydell and the snow that was always falling made it an emotionally cold place to live.Let me know what you think of the book and the significance of the title if you read the book.I did enjoy the read. I live in a small town, and wonder what goes on here that we don't know about. :) 4/5This book was given to me free of charge and without compensation by the publisher in return for an honest review.

I need to be better at updating as I finish books and go along but this one was pretty good!! I enjoyed it and read it all in one sitting, the only thing is I found the ending a little unsatisfactory. It almost felt forced and rushed?

Full disclosure: I won an ARC of this book from GoodReads. This is the first novel by Thomas Cobb that I've read and it scared the crap outt of me. Yes. Had nightmares. Very well written, in fact couldn't put it down, a page turner til the very end. This book depicts how any one person's life and actions can affect so many others, especially in a small town. A true psych thriller with a stunning ending. Definitely a book I would recommend.

This book doesn't have the highest ratings, but I thought it was amazing. It is a terribly sad story, really got me in the feelers. I will definitely be reading Crazy Heart, one of the author's other books.

On a cold winter night in a small town in New England, small town cop Ronny Forbert pulls over a car full of old acquaintances for speeding and driving with a broken headlight. The driver, Matt Laferiere, is intoxicated, belligerent, and fights with the officer, and during the struggle he falls and is struck and killed by a hit and run driver. So begins Darkness the Color of Snow, a terrific psychological drama set in the dead of winter in the cold of the town of Lydell (which I believe is a fictional town but I could be mistaken).It is a small town, and everybody has a history with everyone else. That’s the thing with growing up in a place like that, and why it is normally a good idea to leave. Ron and Matt used to be friends, Ron’s girlfriend used to be Matt’s, the Police Chief used to mess around with a lady that raises goats…everywhere, history. There are no secrets, and everyone remembers the person you were in high school, which works out for some and not for others. The police department in this small town faces the existential threat of being disbanded in favor of patrol by State Police. Politics in this town are controlled by Town Council President Martin Glendenning, who is a slippery fellow and an opportunist who sees this latest incident with the local Police as a chance to get rid of the Police force once and for all.This isn’t my usual cup of tea, but it’s pretty excellent nonetheless. I can relate to the bleakness of the New England winter, the desperation of the small town, the entrapment of misguided career choices. This book succeeds because it captures all of that and makes the most of it. Awesome book.

On a snowy night in a small town, a young police officer named Ronny Forbert pulls over a drunk driver named Matt Laferiere and attempts to make an arrest. In an ensuing physical struggle between Forbert and Laferiere, the drunk driver stumbles into the blacktop of a mountain road and is hit and killed by an oncoming car. What begins as a clear case of an accidental hit and run in the first couple of pages spirals into a tale of corruption, lies, and small town politics. As the police department led by a veteran police chief named Gordy Hawkins stands behind Forbert, the townsfolk, led by a dubious councilman, begin to suspect Forbert of misconduct and make a move to fire him. Ayeee....to go beyond this bit of info is to completely give away the plot. "Darkness the Color of Snow," however, is a tense read. The action fully engrosses you after the first several pages and it never lets up until the end. There is a lot of backstory in this book (I repeat: a lot of backstory) and connections between the characters in this book to make you question the "official" account of what occurred on the road in the first pages. Do read this, though. It's not just the story of an accident, but an interesting examination of what happens as small towns die and jobs are scarce, and the levels of desperation that people go to, and what they are willing to believe in the face of official "facts." Great reading!

I found this to be a fascinating read. The writing is good and the plot is tight. During the set-up, I was prepared to criticize Mr. Cobb for his light development of the characters. After finishing the book, I spent the rest of the evening thinking about it, and I realized that he did not really have to put any more development of his own, because he used such strong archetypes. Without giving away plot points, the setting of the story is middle america a town in decay. Almost all of us have spent time in small towns and know the feel of the town diner and the regulars you would meet there. This novel plays to that, allowing us to supplement the spare writing with our own knowledge. I think there is a mastery of writing there that I have not often seen before.There are twists to this book and the characters often made decisions I was not personally fond of but I considered the trip worthwhile and the story memorable.If you like thought provoking stories, you should like this one!!All the best,Jay

Won this from the Goodreads First Reads program. I'd never read Thomas Cobb before (though I enjoyed the movie version of his novel Crazy Heart), but now that I have, I'll be looking for more. This is barely a crime novel (a DUI and the theft of some farming equipment is about as serious as it gets), but Cobb hooks you through his characters and his version/description of small town & rural life is spot on. Even though the novel is set in Vermont and I live in the Midwest, I felt like I knew these characters and this setting intimately. I liked how much of the novel is told through dialogue. When I got to about 10 pages from the end, I thought How is this going to get wrapped up in 10 pages? But the last 7 pages threw me for a loop and blew me away. Should I have seen it coming? Maybe. But I didn't.

I won an ARC. Out on his regular patrol Ronald stops a group of wild kids for speeding/drinking, etc on a cold night. The driver happens to be someone he had been friends with during his early years. Ronald growed up and made something of his self and become a cop, but his friend just as wild now as in the past. He has no respect for Ronald now and don't get out of the jeep when told to. When he starts to handcuff him a scuffle starts. Ronald is given 5 days with no pay, after the horrible accident when the driver was run over by a hit and run driver. The story then really drags out for those 5 days.This book is one that really shows how lies can change lots of lives. I really didn't like the way the book ended. But don't want to tell too much to spoil for others.