I picked this book to read because of the location. It was like reading a diary of well-traveled roads for me. I could visualize each scene. I couldn't put it down. I had to know where the next turn would lead us. A sad, beautiful story filled with love, family, and friendships. The small things we think about that might have made a difference.

Thrilling story with a plot that kept me turning the pages, really well written with great characters. Highly recommend to everyone who is a fan of this genre.

On the 5th of February 2008, Nicholas Garza left his friend’s dorm room at Middlebury College, Vermont, to walk the 500 yards through the late-night snow to his room. He never made it. Despite searches by the police and his friends, it takes nearly three months for his body to be found in the debris next to Otter Creek.
No, don’t worry, you didn’t read the synopsis wrong. Black Diamond Falls makes no mention of Nicholas Garza and his death that midwinter night. It takes a little person a little longer to search into the nitty-gritty of the novel and its background to find Nicholas Garza’s influence on its pages.
Joseph Olshan found the inspiration for his novel in the events surrounding the case.
Which is usually okay. Absolutely great, fine. The world is an oyster to find inspiration from and all that. Numerous high-profile cases have found themselves planting the seeds in the minds of authors, playwrights, script-writers across the world since the advent of their formats and, where would the Oscars be if we didn’t have films based on real-life events?
The issue in this case is the way that Nicholas Garza’s family was treated over the course of the investigation. He was young, a college student and prone to the excesses that their first days of independence gives them. Alcohol may have contributed to his death, it may not have; the autopsy was inconclusive. He was also hispanic, originally from New Mexico, and in Vermont to study at the prestigious Middlebury College.
The comments by the Chief of Police, amongst others (I mean, read them, they’re disgusting), about Nicholas Garza’s death are abhorrent; endlessly criticising his family, despite the fact they were who-knows-how-many miles away at the time of his death, and releasing the final report of his death without contacting them.
“The way the Middlebury police have handled this has been disgusting." His mother said.
"From the very beginning, the Middlebury police had the idea that it was a dumb, drunk frat boy who found a way to do damage to himself,” His sister added.
And, because of the grief and the mishandling of the case that the Garza family had to deal with, I couldn’t help but think about how they must feel about someone using their tragedy as a writing prompt.
This was only compounded by the lazy, racial stereotypes and casual racism used by the author. I mean, come on?!?!
No, no, no.
Do it well, or don’t do it at all.

Luc is a college student who had finished playing a pickup game of hockey with this friends. Realizing that he lost the class ring of his boyfriend, Luc goes back to find it. He disappears. Sam, Luc’s older boyfriend, comes under suspicion when he cannot provide an alibi for the night he disappears. Hurt in a skiing accident, Sam goes back to Vermont to recuperate and cooperate with the police in Luc’s investigation. What happened after the hockey game? What happened to Luc? Did Sam have something to do with it? Will Luc be found alive?

When I started reading Black Diamond Fall, I thought it was going to be a wham-bam-thank you ma’am mystery. You know the ones that it is obvious who the killer is from the beginning. That isn’t the case here. The author did a fantastic job of keeping exactly what happened to Luc that night under wraps until the end of the book. I was surprised at who it ended up being. Because that person wasn’t on my radar at all. I thought it was the other person that the police kept questioning. To add that twist added to my enjoyment of the book.

I liked how the author interwove Luc wandering around the woods with the police investigation. I was mentally going “Check the darn woods” everytime they brought Sam or Luc’s friends in for questioning. Saying that it was frustrating is an understatement. I also wanted to reach through the book and give Luc some food and a blanket. That was frustrating to read too.

I wish more insight was given into Luc and Sam’s relationship. What they had seemed to be true love, even though they broke up right before Sam went away on his trip. Their relationship was one of the more realistic ones that I have read lately.

I liked how the police investigation didn’t focus on one person. Instead, they had a sizable pool of suspects to question. What I enjoyed about that storyline was how the officers went about narrowing down the field of suspects. I mean, who would have thought that Robert Frost’s Homestead being vandalized would lead to a clue about what happened to Luc. I also like how they caught the person.

The end of the book was bittersweet. I am not going to say much beyond that. The author did a great job of wrapping up all the plotlines. He left nothing hanging. I am hoping that more books will be written with Sam as the main character. I did like him.

I gave Black Diamond Fall a 4-star rating. This was a great read with characters that I could connect with. The plotlines were wonderfully written. The mystery angle kept me on the edge of my seat.

I would give Black Diamond Fall an Adult rating. There is no sex. There is language (some homophobic slurs). There is violence. I would recommend that no one under the age of 21 read this book.

I would reread Black Diamond Fall. I would also recommend this book to family and friends.

I would like to thank Polis Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review Black Diamond Fall.

All opinions expressed on this review of Black Diamond Fall are mine.

**I chose to leave this review after reading an advance reader copy**

A snowy and ice-covered Vermont is beautifully recreated as the location of Joseph Olshan’s “Black Diamond Fall,” a mystery that reveals love and misunderstanding in its dark environs. The disappearance of a young college student after an evening of pond hockey unveils relationships that could cause hatred deep enough to incite a murder, or passion intense enough to kill a lover, or an insensitivity that could lead to a rejective walk-off.

Two detectives relentlessly follow leads and conduct interviews that lead to several possibilities as to the fate of the missing young man. As the clues come together, it’s obvious that lies, misunderstandings, entanglements, and parental disapproval will all play a part in the final story. Increasing numbers of characters reveal knowledge and perhaps complicity that has to be sorted, a job that becomes increasingly difficult for the detectives that are convinced that murder is the most likely culprit. But, they could be wrong.

The writing is clean, the characters well conceived, and the atmosphere is abundant with testosterone and athletic power. Olshan, an outdoorsy person himself, brings those feelings to his storytelling, yet there’s a tenderness and emotional undercurrent that is striking and adds interest to the mystery. A gay love affair is tactfully revealed and is also integral to the story. I felt, however, the overall interest to be somewhat lackluster and uneven. A good read, but not riveting.

3 stars

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was an ok book. Luc Flanders is a college student living a double life. He's a total "bro" with his college friends and girlfriend, but he's secretly in love with an older man whom he sneaks off to see as often as possible. After a night of playing hockey with friends, Luc disappears. The police are torn between deciding if Luc ran off on his own and is simply laying low to avoid friends and family, or if he met with foul play. The police suspect several people of having knowledge of Luc's whereabouts and condition, including Luc's college friends and girlfriend, two juice-head twins selling performance enhancers, and his older lover.

The book was ok, although some plot lines, including the redneck twins, don't seem to have much point. The writing is good, but the story just didn't really interest me and I found myself skim reading the last half of the book.

Joseph Olshan In Black Diamond Fall has cleverly constructed a crime/mystery and love story involving a male college student and a middle-aged man. The points of view change so that the charcaters can tell their own stories. When the student goes missing, we learn more about him and others in his life who then become suspects. I quickly became absorbed in the book and enjoyed it,

I was very disappointed in this novel. I almost stopped reading it after the first two chapters. Set in Vermont, the novel is both a love story and a mystery. I have several concerns with the novel.
1. There is no main character, except for the missing college student who is rarely on stage. The novel jumps from the two detectives to the possible suspects to the parents and back again. As a reader, I did not connect with any of these characters.
2. I felt the novel could have used more editing. Several times I read a sentence that I knew I had read earlier. I was not impressed with the writing style or the language.
3. There was very little momentum moving the story along.
4. For me, the ending was a let down.
After I finished reading the book, I read some of the reviews on Goodreads and was surprised by the number of people who liked the book. They obviously found something in the novel that I did not. I also discovered that the writer had written at least eight novels which also surprised me.
My recommendation is not to read this novel unless you have plenty of time to spare.

Black Diamond Fall opens with Luc Flanders going out on the frozen pond to retrieve the ring he lost during a hockey game. He doesn’t return and is considered a missing person. In the next chapter, two days later, 49-year-old Sam Solomon has accepted the challenge of his best friend to ski down the Black Diamond Fall in Utah. Unfortunately, his skiing skills are not up to the task and he is injured and evacuated from the Fall by helicopter.

Luc’s disappearance is assigned to Nick Jenkins and Helen Kennedy to investigate, and they have several people who might be suspects in Luc’s disappearance, including Sam Solomon. It is, of course, up to them to decipher the information given to them.

The story is told from several different points of view, all in the first person. While the storyline is interesting, and based on two real events, the reading is more than difficult because of the different points of view. At times, the story line is confusing and difficult to figure out, for instance the opening chapter is in Luc’s voice as he returns to the pond to look for his ring while the second chapter is told from Sam’s point of view two days later. When the police begin looking at Sam, we’re told he’s become a suspect because he can’t verify his whereabouts. Wait! What?

Black Diamond Fall is an intriguing and absorbing mystery. Our protagonist, Luc F. is playing hockey when he realizes that he has lost his prized necklace. He returns to the action to recover it, but never arrives home.
Soon the police are involved, determining that it is a missing person’s case. What makes it difficult is that Luc has gone missing before. Is this just another one of his flights of fancy, or is he truly in trouble?
Many are questioned and suspected, including Luc’s boyfriend, who has no valid alibi during the time that Luc has disappeared.
Black Diamond Fall is not only a mystery. It renders a through and comprehensive examination of desire, inter-personal relationships, and emotion. The book makes the reader think about what it means to be alive and interact with friends and foes alike

Luc Flanders realizes that his necklace has broken, and he has lost a prized possession while playing pond hockey with his friends. When he goes back to the pond to retrieve his lost item, he does not return. Police detectives, Nick Jenkins and Helen Kennedy are called in to investigate Luc's disappearance. Luc has disappeared once before, and his parents hope that this is another one of those times. The detectives, investigating his missing persons case, believe foul play is involved. As the investigation gets underway, it is evident that Luc had secrets as did many of those in his life.

There are many suspects including Luc's college roommates and his ex-girlfriend, Elizabeth. One of the suspects is Sam Solomon, an older man with whom Luc was romantically involved. They had a secret relationship which has now been made public. Sam cannot provide an alibi for the time before his ski trip - the time frame during which Luc disappeared.

Around the same time that Luc disappeared the Robert Frost house is vandalized, and the investigators can't help but wonder if Luc's missing person case and the vandalism could be related.
But how and why? As they continue their investigation, secrets, lies and truths will be revealed.

I found this book to be well written, heartfelt, and compelling. This is a crime drama but also explores relationships, desire, sexuality and dealing with conflicted feelings. This may be a crime/mystery but it is also a love story. I enjoyed how the book provided the reader with alternating points of view of many of the characters. Through the POV of Luc, Sam, Nick and Luc's Mother, the reader gets glimpses into all their lives, their thoughts and memories. This is a thought-provoking book lush with vivid descriptions and prose.

Thank you to Polis Books and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

"From the acclaimed author of Clara's Heart and Cloudland comes a rich, literary mystery based and united by two real events that occurred at Middlebury College; the disappearance of a student during winter break; and the vandalism of the Robert Frost Homestead located on one of the outer campuses.

Luc Flanders has just finished playing a game of pond hockey with his college roommates when he realizes he has lost something precious and goes back to the ice to find it. He never returns, and the police department in Middlebury, Vermont are divided in their assessment of what may have happened to him. Some feel that Flanders left on his own accord and is deliberately out of touch. Others, including detectives Nick Jenkins and Helen Kennedy, suspect that harm may have come to him. As the search for Luc Flanders widens and intensifies, suspicions about several different people, including his Middlebury College roommates and ex-girlfriend arise. Unfortunately, Sam Solomon an older man with whom Luc has been having a secret relationship, cannot prove his whereabouts during the hours when the younger man may have disappeared and Solomon, too, comes under suspicion.

As Luke Flanders disappears, the Robert Frost house near the Middlebury campus is vandalized. And there seems to be a link between the two events that the police are determined to discover. Alternating points of view between Luc Flanders Sam Solomon, Luc’s mother and detective Nick Jenkins, Black Diamond Fall races to a disturbing and astonishing conclusion in a lush, literary mystery that could only come from the mind of acclaimed author Joseph Olshan."

I was sold on the linked real events!

BLACK DIAMOND FALL
By Joseph Olshan

The well acclaimed author Joseph Olshan wrote a beautiful mystery that was lush with vivid imagery. I really enjoyed it. It could have been two separate stories in one book. Luc goes missing after he returns to the ice where he forgot something. The Middlebury police are mixed on whether Luc decided to leave the area of his own free will or was there foul play? Robert Frost's house gets vandalized. Are these two crimes related? Is the same person or people involved in both crimes.

Thank you to Net Galley, Joseph Olshan and Polis Books for the ARC.

I am so sorry to give such a low-ish rating to that book because it was really good, so I will start by explaining what I did like about it. The writing is very good. The emotions of Sam and Luc, the two main characters, are very well portrayed and believable, the mystery is also believable and not far fetched and over-the-top like so many recent books I've read that are trying too hard to be original or shocking and miserably fails. This is life, and it's a pleasure to read.

But then there is what didn't truly convinced me. First of all I felt detached to the story, which is strange because it should have been an emotional read, the writing was so good but still I wasn't moved even during some tragic moments (and there are plenty!). I loved Sam and understood him, but still couldn't really feel his grief. Why? Maybe it was just my problem, because I can't see why I wasn't more involved.

Second..the plot.

BUT IF YOU PLAN TO READ THE BOOK YOU REALLY HAVE TO STOP READING HERE BECAUSE

**********BIG BIG SPOILERS AHED**********

YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.

As I said I was not truly invested, but around 70% I was really starting to enjoy the mystery, and hoping for some sort of rewarding ending, and then POUFF, nothing special there.
The culprit isn't really a killer and we never get a full insight to her emotions, what really happened or why (it just says why in two or three words, no explanations, as if the scene had been cut off).
There was no active intention to murder, Luc's death is just the consequence of bad luck, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, meeting the wrong people, the police not being able to be fast enough resolving the crime to save his life. What meaning did his death hold? None for me, just "things happens". I have enough of that shit in my everyday life without asking for more when I'm reading a book. I don't mean I always need to have a HEA, I'm ok with those kind of epilogues that leaves your mounth hanging in shock at how bad thigs went, but only if it makes sense, or rather gives sense to the story. That wasn't the case.
Poor Sam ends up even loosing his dog, and why? Was there a meaning to that? Somebody killed him for a reason? No, just bad luck. Again. The more I write the more enraged I feel about all that! It's a shame because the was so much potential.

I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher and the author for giving me ARC of that book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a book I so wanted to like. It had engaging characters, a current topic and a great setting. But, it desperately needs to be edited. The book is sloppy, tells instead of shows, repeats words and phrases, and has a ton of vey annoying parentheses where it would have been more useful to say what you mean. I won't put this on my review site - please fix it up before publishing.

4.5 stars for this one.

"It was real life now, maybe even real love, named hours before in a sort of fever, a shiny token tossed into a deep well that still glimmered from far below."

Joseph Olshan's new novel, Black Diamond Fall is both a mystery and a somewhat elegiacal look at the passions and uncertainties of love, the challenges of coming to terms with your own sexuality, how grief and anger can consume us, and having to come to terms with the end of a relationship that you don't think should end. While I believe the book works better when it concentrates on the latter issues rather than the mystery component, the mystery is core to the characters' emotions.

Luc Flanders is a student at a small Vermont college. He is a guarded, complex young man whose life was changed after he suffered a traumatic brain injury when he was a teenager. One night, after playing hockey on a frozen pond with his roommates, he realizes he lost something important to him, so he goes back to the pond to find it. He encounters someone while at the pond, and never returns.

After ensuring he didn't fall through the ice that night, everyone—Luc's parents, his roommates, his ex-girlfriend, even the police—can't figure out what happened to Luc, although many have their suspicions, especially once they find out Luc had secretly been in a relationship with Sam Solomon, an architect closer in age to Luc's parents than him. While many knew that Luc was hiding something, it is a surprise to find he had been hiding something so significant.

Sam struggles to deal with the police interrogation related to Luc's disappearance and their relationship, and he doesn't appreciate the scrutiny and suspicion from total strangers as well as people he knows well. Sam didn't want the relationship with Luc to end, didn't understand why Luc was so dead set against accepting the truth about his sexuality, why he wanted to give up a chance to truly love and be loved the way he had always longed to.

When the home of famed poet Robert Frost, not far from the college campus, is vandalized, the police investigating the incident discover some interesting links between this crime and Luc's disappearance. Are the two crimes connected? Will finding out who is responsible for the vandalism lead them to Luc's whereabouts?

When the book focuses on Luc and Sam and their relationship, and the way those around them must come to terms with it, it is beautifully written, poignant, thought-provoking, and at times, emotional. You can feel the conflicts that Luc is dealing with, torn between accepting who he is, giving in to love, or trying to live a "normal" life. You can also feel the strength of Sam's grief even though he knew inherently their relationship might not last.

I felt the mystery components were still compelling, but I wanted more Sam and Luc. However, the chapters narrated by Luc's mother and a police detective investigating Luc's disappearance are definitely readable, and you hope that everything will be solved to your liking, that none of the characters you've come to care about are responsible for any of the bad things that happened.

Joseph Olshan is an immensely gifted storyteller. His novel Clara's Heart was made into a late-1980s movie with Whoopi Goldberg and Neil Patrick Harris, and I remember being utterly moved by Nightswimmer when I read it in 1994. I'm glad to see his talent is as strong as ever with Black Diamond Fall. While at times it feels like two books in one, the fact is, you can't stop reading either of them, and at the end, you're moved by the beauty of Olshan's writing.

NetGalley and Polis Books provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

Luckily is on the frozen pond looking for a lost ring. He's hit on the head. Now friends and family are looking for him, he has disappeared. Some believe he just left. Law enforcement believe something more sinister may have occurred. Then they find out his college friends may be involved.
I liked this story. The Author is articulate in his descriptions. The characters are scintillating. Most of all you don't know where this story will end. Highly recommend.

3.5/5 stars (rounded up to 4)

Weaving together two fictionalised versions of of real world events, Joseph Olshan has created an atmospheric and moody mystery novel set in rural Vermont during winter. College student Luc Flanders has disappeared after a night time game of ice hockey with his friends, and as the investigation into his disappearance gains momentum, Luc’s own secrets and those of his friends, are slowly revealed.

The story is told from multiple POVs including the investigators, Luc’s mother, his erstwhile lover, Sam, and Luc himself. The addition of Luc’s own narrative during his disappearance adds another layer to the already complex mystery, however these insights, for me, are few and far between, with Luc Flanders remaining somewhat of a mystery himself.

Black Diamond Fall is a mystery but also at its centre, a story of acceptance and loss, and I would have liked to experience a greater connection to Sam and especially Luc.

The ending of this novel is haunting and beautiful but would have felt more impactful and resonant to me if I had been able to connect more strongly to the main characters.

Thankyou for Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed the mystery aspect of this book and the setting but could never connect with the characters.
Thanks to publish for allowing me to review this book.