Review | THE LIGHT RUNNER Sets a Good Pace

The Light Runner
Written by Ally Walker
Published by Red Rabbit Press
June 6, 2025
Hardcover, 315 pgs.

It begins innocuously enough; a murder, a high-profile political candidate, and a psychiatric hospital where everything swirls together in a perfect storm of mystery. What you might expect from a standard boilerplate murder mystery, right?

And then it starts to get a little weird.

When I first saw Ally Walker — yes, Ally Walker the actress — post about her very first novel, I was intrigued. I’d watched her on Profiler many moons ago, and she’d been a regular guest on Longmire. I’ve always admired her skill as an actress, so how would that translate to the written page with her as the creator? Doing my research, I see that she’s done quite a bit more than just acting; the more I researched, the more I figure she’s got the chops to spin a decent yarn. I was right, and it appears that she’s done this all by herself without a ghost writer.

It starts with the murder of Dr. Hannah Haskell, researcher at Wellglad Pharmaceuticals and wife of Senate candidate Captain Oliver Haskell, decorated war hero. Haskell checks himself into Bainbridge, where he’s put on suicide watch under the care of young psychiatrist Dr. Ella Kramer. Kramer feels out of her element with such a high profile patient, and it’s after Haskell has a few interactions with other patients that she starts to get a feeling that something is… off.

Now, you’d think that’s something like a psychological disorder or some kind of emotional imbalance — I mean, the guy’s wife just got murdered — but it’s something more than that. So when several conversations with patients and her aunt, who don’t know each other, start to all spiral around the same sort of topic, it starts Ella thinking that maybe there’s more to this than meets the eye. Only the direction those conversations go… well, that’s where this becomes a science fiction story.

Meanwhile, the murder investigation continues with Detective Paul Moran looking into the evidence to hand while following his gut as well, and his gut is telling him that something’s… off about Haskell, too. What could it be? What was Dr. Haskell working on when she was killed? Was it foul play? Or was it, indeed, murder?

And how does a rabbit fit into all of this?

The Profiler does a good job bobbing and weaving between two complementary threads as we head toward the last few chapters, where we get some … let’s call them interesting reveals that will likely lead into the next book (three are planned, currently). Walker’s prose is well-crafted, even in those times where some heady complicated concepts start to percolate under the surface. The added layers of Ella’s trauma, Sebastian’s multiple personalities, and the way Moran’s suspicions start to multiply, all appear to be going in one direction typical of the murder mystery thriller this sets up to be.

But…

But we’re getting into spoilers, and I would like to save that for you to encounter on your own, because knowing ahead of time would ruin the reveal. It’s one of those things where Walker has been leading up to it, and you’ll “but of course” once you get there, but Walker also writes it in a way that has you wondering if Ella is just losing her mind or if this is actually where we’re going. And of course, just when it starts to gel and you find out what “The Light Runner” means, it’s time to close the book and wait for the sequel.

I will be watching for the sequel.

One thing I like about Walker’s writing style is her ability to show instead of tell. Her prose takes the reader though a lot of mental mechanics — the psychology and mental health material — but does it in a way that still propels the plot forward. There are no “let me explain” interruptions; rather, the exposition comes through dialogue and character ruminations. As Ella and Doran go through the process of figuring out their respective mysteries, the text opens up for us to reach back into past experiences that inform present circumstances, and it’s all organic to resolving the main threads of the story.

As those threads start to weave together toward a final resolution, the pace picks up. There’s more urgency as the stakes get higher. And those stakes start to grow out of unexpected places, until you see how it all connects in the end. It’s a neat package, with certain elements tied off in a bow at the close of the book, but others ready to lead into the sequel as you’re left with one big question about where this all started, and just how much of it true, and how much is a mass delusion…

Pick this one up and say “hallo, rabbit.”