Author’s bold ‘Black Out’

Unger delivers with third mystery novel

Anybody who has cracked open a mystery novel in the last 25 years knows by now there are two Floridas. There’s the sunny, pastel-hued, happy Walt Disney Florida. And then there’s the Florida teeming with lunatics in trailer parks and bodies in the saw grass.

The prophets of this dual vision have mined the territory with gusto over the years, among them Elmore Leonard, crime-reporter-turned-novelist Edna Buchanan and the high priest of Sunshine State-based wackiness, Carl Hiaasen.

So kudos to Lisa Unger for venturing onto such well-trod ground with a novel that takes an especially dark look at the state’s underbelly. While “Black Out” (Crown, $23), her third book, doesn’t always work, it still boasts a largely gripping narrative and evocative, muscular prose.

Annie Powers, the novel’s heroine, is a woman with a murky past, the monstrous details of which emerge slowly, measured out like spent bullet casings periodically tossed along a dark road.

Unger takes on the challenging task of telling Annie’s story in what amounts to double-flashback style. Unger skillfully weaves these three narratives back and forth to create the perfect razor’s edge of tension.

The book falters when it’s time for Unger to complete the multipart puzzle. She doesn’t cut corners so much as force together interlocking scenarios that are just a bit too far-fetched. Sadly, these missteps threaten to overshadow the book’s disturbing core, which is rewarding in a darkly voyeuristic way: the gruesomely realistic tale of a troubled teen’s descent into a codependent hell on earth.