Deadly Online Gaming

Deadly Online Gaming

Bruce Von Stiers

Katelynn is smart, pretty, popular and a cheerleader. She has a twin brother, Jason, who seems to be the opposite. Once outgoing, and somewhat popular, Jason is now moody and reclusive. He spends a lot of time in the online gaming world. The darker side of the online gaming world. Katelynn is bothered by Jason's behavior, but nobody else seems to take it seriously. That is, until something unspeakable happens.

This is the start of an exciting new psychological thriller by Barbara Nickless titled A Voice In The Dark. It is being published by Thomas & Mercer.

Nickless is known for the Sydney Rose Parnell railroad detective series. Her Evan Wilding series has gotten accolades from noted authors such as Tami Hoag, Tracy Clark and Lisa Jackson, along with Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, the Denver Post and independent reviewers such as me.

Members of Katelyn's family are murdered, and Katelynn, Jason, and the family dog have disappeared. FBI profiler Helen Belle is brought in. She had investigated a similar case five years before, along with consultant Bennedict Hoffman.

At the heart of this novel is the impact that a person, or persons, can have on a teenager via online gaming. And how video game therapy can help, or hinder, a teen with psychological issues. And how to stop bad actors from insinuating, and immersing themselves, into the lives of these troubled teens.

In the earlier case that Helen and Benedict worked on, they tried to convince a jury that the defendant, a teenaged boy who killed his family, had been influenced by a shadowy online presence known as Midnight Man. Benedict's findings were discounted by an expert witness, who had been his mentor. But now, with almost identical circumstances, could Midnight Man exist? If so, who is he and how can Helen, her fellow FBI agents, and Benedict, stop him? And can they find Katelynn before it's too late? Complicating things slightly is the fact that when they previously worked together, Helen and Benedict had a romantic relationship. When the case fell apart, so did their relationship.

The novel moves between a first-person narrative from Helen to a third person via Benedict. There is also another character or two that have their own narrative as well. This combination of narratives gives the reader a well-rounded sense of the story.

Years ago I reviewed a lot of video games. Most were lively, fun, and fairly sedate. But some were pretty dark, a few were very dark. As I was easing out of the video game reviewing realm, I saw online gaming exploding. A few of the games that I reviewed like The Elder Scrolls and World Of Warcraft became huge hits online.

But what if someone took some of those sedate online role-playing games and made them gateways to darker, harsher games? And what if these bad actors somehow convinced players that their families were considered NPC's, or non-playing characters in the game? And that the player was living in a simulation and must do something for their families and themselves to transcend into the real world? That is a very scary plot element and could possibly be something that could happen.

Also tucked into the novel are concerns about AI. About how AI could self-learn and become independent. And that AI combined with the actions of bad actors, could lead to dangerous consequences. There are real world concerns now about how fast AI has become the norm and what the future holds. There are also concerns about job loss due to AI and loss of natural resources because of the needs of data centers that drive AI.

To use a cliché here, A Voice In The Dark was hard to put down. The characters were vivid and the story grabbed me from the very start. Combining video game therapy and online role-playing games being used for nefarious purposes makes this a terrific psychological thriller.

A Voice In The Dark is being released on July 1 st , 2026. You can pre-order it from Amazon, Bookshop and Barnes and Noble.

To learn more about A Voice In The Dark and Barbara Nickless, visit https://barbaranickless.com/

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