Dark Places by Gillian FlynnMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Dark Places left me cold. A mother and two of her daughters slaughtered in shocking fashion. The youngest daughter, Libby Day, survived this act of violence and her evidence put her fifteen-year-old brother Ben behind bars, guilty of the mass murder of his own family. Or was he? Twenty four years later Libby is contacted by a group calling themselves The Kill Club, all convinced of Ben's innocence. And if Ben wasn't guilty who did massacre the Day family?
There is not one character to like in this seedy tale of small-town America - Kinnakee, Kansas. The manipulative, alcoholic father, who leaves his wife and family to fend for themselves and cope with a run down farm; and they don't. The downtrodden mother, drowning in debt - doles out a meal of sandwiches that consist of a slice of bread spread with mustard. Ben's girlfriend Diondra - well, I won't go there - don't want to give too much of the plot away. And our 'heroine' the light-fingered Libby Day has few redeeming qualities. After contact from the group, headed by the enthusiastic Lyle Wirth, Libby begins to realise that everyone in her family had something to hide that day.... Was she mistaken with what she thought she heard as a seven-year-old?
In the latter half of the book there is one chapter that contains scenes of such depravity that left me reeling with shock. Gratuitous and unnecessary.
In some defence of Dark Places the plot is well constructed, switching chapter by chapter between the events of 1985 and the present, which helps to maintain a relentless pace. I finished the book relatively quickly, to be done with it. I so enjoyed Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn; I cannot say the same for Dark Places.
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