Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Thriller
“The Devil lurked nearby in our Kansas town, an evil that was as natural and physical as a hillside.”
“I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark, drop on the floor so you could stomp on it. It’s the Day blood. Something’s wrong with it.”
In January 1985 the Day family was murdered in the home, all but two were killed, Libby- 7 and Ben- 15. Libby testified that it was her brother Ben that killed her mom and two sisters that night. The Kinnakee Kansas Farmhouse Massacre they called it. But had she lied.
Twenty five years later, Libby has convinced herself that her brother slaughtered her family, that is until a group of amateur sleuths, called the Kill Club, reach out to her. They are certain that someone else committed the horrendous crime that night and they want to pick Libby’s brain for answers. Libby knows that the Kill Club can’t change her mind but she is willing to take advantage of their obsession to make some money. She agrees to go find and interview people associated with the crime and question the about that night, for a fee and the Kill Club is more than willing to pay for the answers. What Libby didn’t expect was to start to doubt herself and become just as enthralled with finding out the truth as they are.
“Maybe I could believe in Ben again, which is what I wanted to do. I knew now why I’d never gone to visit him. It was too tempting, too easy to ignore the prison walls, and just see my brother, hear the Ben-specific cadence of his voice, that downward slope at the end of every sentence, like it might be the last thing he was ever going to say.”
“I knew I would keep going like this, actually, that I couldn’t stop until I found some sort of answer… I remember watching a very sensible love expert on TV once. The advice: “Don’t be discouraged- every relationship you have is a failure, until you find the right one.” That’s how I felt about this miserable quest: every person I talked to would let me down until I found the one person who could help me figure out that night.”
What secrets will Libby uncover that have been long buried and forgotten?
Gillian Flynn nails another one! A great thriller the whole way through. Told from several points of view and two separate times, the day of the murders and Libby now, 25 years later. This way of telling the story allows you to get little glimpses of what happened that day that led to the death of three people.
I had already seen the movie, so the cat was already out of the bad, but even still this was a great read. Of course the book is significantly better. To those that have not seen the movie, you will be guessing and kept on your toes every page. I have already started recommending this book to my thriller lover friends, even if you have already seen the movie it’s worth it.
This is for adults only, includes violence, language, and sexual content.
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