I have to confess I am not really a “who dunnit” reader. I blame watching one to many mind numbing crime programmes on television. I now pretty much don’t care about these imaginary victims with their corpses displayed for my viewing pleasure (they are getting more and more graphic have you noticed?) nor can I be bothered waiting to see who did what to whom and why (their mother was too clingy, they are greedy or just plain psychopaths ). But I do have to confess that Gillian Flynn’s “Dark Places” has managed to change that.
None of the main players in this book are likable. There is no truely innocent victim nor some hardened but likable local cop. The main protagonists in this book is the greasy haired angry and depressed Libby Day, who lives off the proceeds of her dwindling trust fund, set up for her when as a child her mother and two sisters were slaughtered in the family’s Kansas farmhouse. It was a seven-year-old Libby’s testimony that sent her then 15-year-old brother, Ben, to prison for life for the murders. Ben, who we also get to know well in the book as an awkward and angry manchild, yearning for a father-figure while being raised in a poverty-stricken household by a single overwhelmed mother.
We meet Libby twenty odd years latter after the murders, when desperate for cash she reluctantly agrees to meet members of the Kill Club, true crime enthusiasts who bicker over famous cases. She’s shocked to learn most of them believe Ben is innocent and the real killer is still on the loose. Though initially interested only in making a quick buck Libby soon begins to question what exactly she saw—or didn’t see—the night of the tragedy.
The book is told in an interesting flashback format, with Libby, tough and damaged narrating the present-day chapters in first-person, while the flashback chapters, told in third-person, describe the actions of several key characters including Ben on one winter’s day in 1985.
Trust me – you will never guess what happened in that farmhouse in 1985 and I challenge you not to have your mouth agape at the end when you find out!
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