Find You in the Dark

by Nathan Ripley

"A family man with a habit of digging up the past catches the attention of a serial killer who wants anything but his secrets uncovered. For years, unbeknownst to his wife and teenage daughter, Martin Reese has been illegally buying police files on serial killers and obsessively studying them, using them as guides to find the missing bodies of victims. He doesn't take any souvenirs, just photos that he stores in an old laptop, and then he turns in the results anonymously. Martin sees his work as a public service, a righting of wrongs. Detective Sandra Whittal sees the situation differently. On a meteoric rise in police ranks due to her case-closing efficiency, Whittal is suspicious of the mysterious source she calls the Finder, especially since he keeps leading the police right to the bodies. Even if he isn't the one leaving bodies behind, how can she be sure he won't start soon? On his latest dig, Martin searches for the first kill of Jason Shurn, the early 1990s murderer who may have been responsible for the disappearance of his wife's sister. But when he arrives at the site, he finds more than just bones. There's a freshly killed body--a young and missing Seattle woman--lying among remains that were left there decades ago. Someone else knew where Jason Shurn left the corpses of his victims ... and that someone isn't happy that Martin has been going around digging up his work. And when a crooked cop with a tenuous tie to Martin vanishes, Whittal begins to zero in on the Finder. Hunted by a real killer and by Whittal, Martin realizes that in order to escape, he may have to go deeper into the killer's dark world than he ever thought.."--

• ISBN10: 1432859714
• ISBN13: 9781432859718
• Publish Date: 26 December 2018 (first published 9 February 2018)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Thorndike Press Large Print
• Edition: Large type / large print edition
• Format: Hardcover (Library Binding)
• Pages: 579
• Language: English

Reviews

[Quirky Cat]

I received a copy of Find You in the Dark through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

If you’re looking for a novel that will give you the chills even during the mildest of moments, then Find You in the Dark is the book for you. Even when the main character was doing nothing more than taking his daughter to swim practice I felt myself chilled to the bone and expecting the worst to happen.
Have you ever found yourself fascinated by a serial killer? It’s a morbid idea, and yet so many people would have to confess to doing just that – look at the media and it’ll speak volumes about society’s fascination with them. Martin Reese is that fascination brought to an obsessive level. He’s meticulous and creepy and more than a little bit morbid. More than that, he goes much farther than any fan or follower ever would, but he isn’t a copycat killer. That’s a very important thing to be aware of. He’s different.



Warnings first: This novel focuses heavily on a man following the steps of serial killers. I don’t mean he’s repeating their actions, I mean that he’s literally tracking their path, and more important, the bodies they’ve left behind. It’s graphic and creepy on all sorts of levels. There are plenty of potential triggers in this book, so please consider yourself warned.
This book was so creepy. At times I loved it, and at other times I resented it. It was weird, to feel that conflicted about it. Perhaps it’s because I don’t find myself to be obsessed with killers? (I tend to err on the side of paying more attention to the victims, and try to ignore the media about the killers).
Find You in the Dark is eerie and creepy, and sometimes not in a good way. There were fascinating moments, like seeing where Martin was going to go with things, or following the police officer that was trying to solve the case. And then there were times where it got too graphic to actually be considered creepy – the tone was disturbing during some of these scenes, and I found myself wishing they’d just be over.
I do think that this was a well written book, but at times it was hard to separate Martin’s obsession with tracking bodies from the fascination with killers, and I couldn’t tell how ingrained that idea was in the book. It was…off-putting is probably the best way to phrase it. Like I was reading something I shouldn’t have had access to. I didn’t love the feeling, but maybe it’s exactly the sort of novel somebody else is looking for.
I think I liked the first half of the book more than the second, which is ironic. I was so anxious the entire book – waiting to see what happened next that I kept hoping for the later parts. I do think the first half was better written, and that the end was a little bit of a copout, but others may disagree with me there. I will say that it was a unique premise and I have to respect that, even if it completely squicked me out at times.


For more reviews, check out Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks