- Format: Kindle Edition
- File Size: 1694 KB
- Print Length: 368 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0307341569
- Publisher: Broadway Books (May 5 2009)
-
Sold by: Random House Canada, Incorp.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B0027MJU00
Book Description
Libby Day was just seven years old when her evidence put her fifteen-year-old brother behind bars.
Since
then, she has been drifting. But when she is contacted by a group who
are convinced of Ben's innocence, Libby starts to ask questions she
never dared to before. Was the voice she heard her brother's? Ben was a
misfit in their small town, but was he capable of murder? Are there
secrets to uncover at the family farm or is Libby deluding herself
because she wants her brother back?
She begins to realise that
everyone in her family had something to hide that day... especially Ben.
Now, twenty-four years later, the truth is going to be even harder to
find.
Who did massacre the Day family?
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Named one of the Best Books of 2009 by Publishers Weekly
A Weekend TODAY “Top Summer Read”
The New Yorker's Reviewers' Favorite from 2009
A 2009 Favorite Fiction Pick by The Chicago Tribune
“[A] nerve-fraying thriller.”
—
The New York Times
“Flynn’s well-paced story deftly shows the fallibility of memory and the lies a child tells herself to get through a trauma.”
—The New Yorker
“Gillian Flynn coolly demolished the notion that little girls are made of sugar and spice in
Sharp Objects,
her sensuous and chilling first thriller. In DARK PLACES, her equally
sensuous and chilling follow-up, Flynn…has conjured up a whole new crew
of feral and troubled young females….[A] propulsive and twisty mystery.”
—
Entertainment Weekly“Flynn follows her deliciously creepy
Sharp Objects
with another dark tale . . . The story, alternating between the 1985
murders and the present, has a tense momentum that works beautifully.
And when the truth emerges, it’s so macabre not even twisted little
Libby Day could see it coming.”
—People (4 stars)
“Crackles with peevish energy and corrosive wit.”
—Dallas Morning News
“A riveting tale of true horror by a writer who has all the gifts to pull it off.”
—Chicago Tribune
"In her first psychological thriller,
Sharp Objects,
Flynn created a world unsparingly grim and nasty (the heroine carves
words into her own flesh) written with irresistibly mordant humor. The
sleuth in her equally disturbing and original second novel is Libby
Day....It's Flynn's gift that she can make a caustic, self-loathing,
unpleasant protagonist someone you come to root for.”
—New York Magazine“[A] gripping thriller.”
—
Cosmopolitan"Gillian Flynn is the real deal, a sharp, acerbic, and compelling storyteller with a knack for the macabre.”
–Stephen King
“Another winner!”
—Harlan Coben“Gillian Flynn’s writing is compulsively good. I would rather read her than just about any other crime writer.”
—Kate Atkinson“Dark Places grips you from the first page and doesn't let go.”
—Karin Slaughter
“With her blistering debut Sharp Objects, Gillian Flynn hit the ground running. Dark Places demonstrates that was no fluke.”
—Val McDermid“
Dark Places'
Libby Day may seem unpleasant company at first–she's humoring those
with morbid curiosities about her family's murders in order to get money
out of them–but her steely nature and sharp tongue are compelling. 'I
have a meanness inside me,'she says, 'real as an organ.'Yes she does,
and by the end of this pitch-black novel, after we've loosened our grip
on its cover and started breathing deeply again, we're glad Flynn
decided to share it.”
—Jessa Crispin, NPR.org
“Flynn
returns to the front ranks of emerging thriller writers with her aptly
titled new novel . . . Those who prefer their literary bones with a
little bloody meat will be riveted.”
—
Portland Oregonian
“Gillian
Flynn may turn out to be a more gothic John Irving for the 21st
century, a writer who uses both a surgeon's scalpel and a set of rusty
harrow discs to rip the pretty face off middle America.”
—San Jose Mercury News
“The
world of this novel is all underside, all hard flinch, and Flynn’s
razor-sharp prose intensifies this effect as she knuckles in on every
sentence. . . . The slick plotting in DARK PLACES will gratify the lover
of a good thriller–but so, too, will Flynn’s prose, which is ferocious
and unrelenting and pure pleasure from word one.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Gillian Flynn’s second novel, DARK PLACES
, proves that her first –
Sharp Objects – was no fluke. . . . tough, surprising crime fiction that dips its toes in the deeper waters of literary fiction.”
—Chicago Sun-Times"Flynn
fully inhabits Libby—a damaged woman whose world has resided entirely
in her own head for the majority of her life and who is prone to dark
metaphors: 'Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with
fangs.' Half the fun of DARK PLACES is Libby’s swampy psychology, which
Flynn leads us through without the benefit of hip waders.”
—Time Out Chicago“Clever, engrossing and disturbing….[DARK PLACES] should cement [Flynn’s] place in the great authors of crime fiction.”
—
Crimespree
“[D]eliciously
creepy...Flynn follows 250-some pages of masterful plotting and
character development with a speedway pileup of pulse-pounding
revelations.”
—
Chicago Reader
“A genuinely shocking denouement.”
—Romantic Times
“Sardonic,
riveting . . . Like Kate Atkinson, Flynn has figured out how to fuse
the believable characters, silken prose and complex moral vision of
literary fiction to the structure of a crime story. . . . You can sense
trouble coming like a storm moving over the prairie, but can't quite
detect its shape.”
—Laura Miller, Salon.com
“These
characters are fully realized—so true they could step off the
page….hints of what truly happened to the Day family feel painfully,
teasingly paced as they forge an irresistible trail to the truth….Could.
Not. Stop. Reading.”
—
Bookreporter.com
“Libby’s voice
is a pitch-perfect blend of surliness and emotionally charged imagery. .
. . The Kansas in these pages is a bleak, deterministic place where bad
blood and lies generate horrifically unintended consequences. Though
there’s little redemption here, Flynn manages to unearth the humanity
buried beneath the squalor.”
—Bloomberg.com
“Set
in the bleak Midwest of America, this evocation of small-town life and
dysfunctional people is every bit as horribly fascinating as Capote’s
journalistic retelling of a real family massacre, In Cold Blood, which
it eerily resembles. This is only Flynn’ s second crime novel–her debut
was the award-winning
Sharp Objects–and demonstrates even more forcibly her precocious writing ability and talent for the macabre.”
—Daily Mail (UK)“Flynn’s
second novel is a wonderful evocation of drab small-town life. The
time-split narrative works superbly and the atmosphere is eerily
macabre—
Dark Places is even better than the author’s award-winning
Sharp Objects.”
—The Guardian (UK)
“A gritty, riveting thriller with a one-of-a-kind, tart-tongued heroine.”
—Booklist, starred review
“Flynn’s second crime thriller tops her impressive debut,
Sharp Objects…When the truth emerges, it’s so twisted that even the most astute readers won’t have predicted it.”
—
Publishers Weekly, starred review
“The
sole survivor of a family massacre is pushed into revisiting a past
she’d much rather leave alone, in Flynn’s scorching follow-up to
Sharp Objects
. . . Flynn intercuts Libby’s venomous detective work with flashbacks
to the fatal day 24 years ago so expertly that as they both hurtle
toward unspeakable revelations, you won’t know which one you’re more
impatient to finish. . . . every sentence crackles with enough baleful
energy to fuel a whole town through the coldest Kansas winter.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Once
in a while a book comes along that puts a new spin on an old idea. More
than 40 years ago, Truman Capote took readers inside the Clutter
farmhouse in Holcomb, KS, to show them what it was like to walk in a
killer's shoes. Flynn takes modern readers back to Kansas to explore the
fictional 1985 Day family massacre from the perspective of a survivor
as well as the suspects. . . . tight plotting and engaging characters.”
—
Library Journal
About the Author
Gillian Flynn is an American author and television critic for Entertainment Weekly. She has so far written three novels, Sharp Objects, for which she won the 2007 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for the best thriller; Dark Places; and her best-selling third novel Gone Girl.
Her
book has received wide praise, including from authors such as Stephen
King. The dark plot revolves around a serial killer in a Missouri town,
and the reporter who has returned from Chicago to cover the event.
Themes include dysfunctional families,violence and self-harm.
In
2007 the novel was shortlisted for the Mystery Writers of America Edgar
for Best First Novel by an American Writer, Crime Writers' Association
Duncan Lawrie, CWA New Blood and Ian Fleming Steel Daggers, winning in
the last two categories.
Flynn, who lives in Chicago, grew up in
Kansas City, Missouri. She graduated at the University of Kansas, and
qualified for a Master's degree from Northwestern University.
Review Quotes:
"Gillian Flynn is the real deal, a sharp, acerbic, and compelling storyteller with a knack for the macabre."
–Stephen King
My Review
I have previously read Gone Girl which I devoured. Dark Places will be released as a movie this year starring Charlize Theron in the title role so I though I would read the book before the movie came out.
I found the main character Libby Day to be absolutely fascinating. A young victim of crime who has grown up but has no support system. She is an incredible mess. I was immediately worried about her! I enjoyed how the story kept building up, both in the present and in the past. Dark Places is a great thriller that was impossible to put down. I loved the twists in the ending. Thought I had things figured out but was only half right.
Excellent book! I hope the movie will be as good. What a story!
