One Fateful Night

Your Corner Dark by Desmond Hall

There was no good choice to make. Everything was a dark corner.

Franklyn is not aimlessly wandering through life. Frankie has a plan to escape his dead-end existence in Jamaica. With hard work and determination, Frankie has earned a scholarship to study engineering at a university in the United States. He will be the first in his family to attend college. His deceased mother would be proud. His dream is about to become a reality.

Then one fateful night everything changes. His father is struck by a stray bullet and critically wounded during an altercation between warring political factions. An expensive treatment may save his father, but where will Frankie come up with an exorbitant amount of cash? He tries every possible stratagem to pay for needed treatment. Ultimately he reaches this heartbreaking conclusion:

The scholarship dream had to die
​so that his father could live.

The only way for Frankie to get enough money for his father’s care is to join his uncle’s posse, the local syndicate which completely dominates life in the community and controls everything from garbage collection to local politicians.

Frankie is plunged into a sordid life of drugs, violence, and corruption. He is required to carry a loaded gun, serve as protection and lookout on posse raids, package and transport shipments of marijuana. Membership in his uncle's posse lasts a lifetime. He may never op out. ​Things are further complicated when he is attracted a beautiful and talented student, an artist whose work serves as pointed social commentary. To make matters worse, her father is a police sargeant.

Frankie’s father dies. His mother and best friend are dead. The dream of studying in the United States has evaporated. His uncle’s syndicate requires him to kill and commit other horrendous acts. This is his current existence.
Frankie considers his future as a posse member and knows that can't go on living like this. The stress has become unbearable. He wonders: Is there a way out?

Hall keeps readers on tenterhooks. Will Frankie find a way to extricate himself from the posse? Can he salvage his dream of attending college in the United States? What will become of the relationship with his girlfriend? And ultimately, can he save his own soul? Is there hope?

Your Corner Dark depicts a world of poverty, desperation, and organized crime with an intensity and immediacy that doesn’t let up until the last paragraph on the final page. I couldn't put it down.

Uncorrected copy provided by publisher.

Pub date: January 19, 2021  Publisher: Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books  ISBN:  978-1534460713