Libby Day was just seven years old when her older brother massacred her family while she hid in a cupboard. Her evidence helped put him away. Ever since then she has been drifting, surviving for over twenty years on the proceeds of the 'Libby Day fund'. But now the money is running out and Libby is desperate. When she is offered $500 to do a guest appearance, she feels she has to accept. But this is no ordinary gathering. The Kill Club is a group of true-crime obsessives who share information on notorious murders, and they think her brother Ben is innocent. It is 2 January 1985 - the day of the murders. Ben is a social misfit, ground down by the small-town farming community in which he lives. His family is extremely poor, and his father Runner is violent, gambles and disappears for months on end. But Ben does have a girlfriend - a brooding heavy metal fan called Diondra. Through her, Ben becomes involved with drugs and the dark arts. When the town suddenly turns against him, his thoughts turn black. But is he capable of murder?In a brilliantly interwoven plot, Gillian Flynn keeps the reader balanced on a knife-edge, as Libby delves into her family's past and Ben spirals towards destruction.
On January 2, 1985 Libby Day's family is brutally murdered "In Cold Blood" style. The seven year old, due to her testimony, convicts her 15 year old brother Ben of the crime. Twenty-five years later Libby's "sympathy fund" is starting to dwindle and due to the likes of Jonbenet Ramsey and Elizabeth Smart she is starting to fade into the background. With a lost existence and on the verge of going broke she is contacted by The Kill Club, an organization who continually studies her case and is convinced Ben is innocent. When the club offers payment to make a special appearance, Libby agrees, thinking it will put her back on the radar (and could also use the extra cash) only to have the group berate her for putting an innocent man behind bars. After an undesired reception Libby is forced to greet the dark places in the depths of her mind and discover her families killer and uncover what really happened that night.
I really enjoyed Dark Places, it is one of the few books that shows the heroine in a bad light and at times I was so annoyed by her lack of direction that I wanted to throw the book against that wall. But that doesn't mean I stopped reading it, quite the contrary, I ate it up like I hadn't eaten in weeks. Dark Places skips back and forth between 1985 and present day and is also broken up into different perspectives which I thought really helped to give the reader a better understanding for the crime at hand. Also, Dark Places was a mystery that kept you guessing on the true killer. It couldn't be Ben right? That would be too easy. But then who? "Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar..." Just when I thought I had it all figured out Gillian Flynn would throw another clue into the mix tossing my old suspicions into the wind. Dark Places is a great mystery novel that I couldn't put down reading into the night.
Reading updates
-
Started reading
-
7 August, 2011:
Finished reading
-
7 August, 2011:
Reviewed