Dr. Samantha Owen's husband and two young children are dead, lost during a vicious storm and a powerful flood.

We are told this within pages of the novel's opening, in less exact terms. A Deeper Darkness portrays a woman who is mired in numbing grief with no end in sight. The emptiness, the cold distance, even the newly acquired OCD are deftly woven throughout the story of an ex-boyfriend's murder and subsequent conspiracy that follows. It ends with a promise of a new life for Samantha, but no miracles.