When two girls, aged nine and ten are abducted and killed in Wind Gap, Missouri, Camille Preaker is sent back to her home town to investigate and report on the crimes. Camille, self-described 'white trash from old money', is the daughter of one of the richest families in town. Long-haunted by a childhood tragedy and estranged from her mother for years, Camille suddenly finds herself installed once again in her family's Victorian mansion, reacquainting herself with her distant mother and the half-sister she barely knows, a precocious 13-year-old who holds a disquieting grip on the town and surrounds herself with a group of vampish teenage girls. As Camille struggles to remain detached from the evidence, her relationship with her neurotic, hypochondriac mother threatens to topple her hard-won mental stability. Working alongside the police chief and a special agent from out of town, Camille tries to uncover the mystery of who killed these little girls and why. But there are deeper psychological puzzles: Why does Camille identify so strongly with the dead girls? And how is this connected to the death of another sister years earlier?
I read Gillian Flynn's books in reverse order, and I think this one, by far, is the most plausible. Definitely not for the faint of heart, this book sucks you in pretty quickly if you like your heroines questionable and a bit unbalanced, and you understand the destructive power of emotional pain. The main character is a cutter, so stay away if that is triggering or disturbing to you. I enjoy Flynn's use of people who feel real, even the dark and dingy parts, but I must admit that by the time I hit this book, I was starting to get a little frustrated with her penchant for purposefully gross-out descriptions. The twist ending wasn't really quite a twist, but watching the main character get there was most of the fun. I won't say much more, because it's a mystery, but this was a very enjoyable read. Just be ready for the nihilistic back wash of this book into your every day life. For the rest of the day, you'll definitely be thinking everything sucks and the world is awful. But then, these days, that might just be life.
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14 December, 2016:
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14 December, 2016:
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Started reading
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14 December, 2016:
Reviewed