Dark Places

Starred review from March 23, 2009
Edgar-finalist Flynn’s second crime thriller tops her impressive debut, Sharp Objects
. When Libby Day’s mother and two older sisters were slaughtered in the family’s Kansas farmhouse, it was seven-year-old Libby’s testimony that sent her 15-year-old brother, Ben, to prison for life. Desperate for cash 24 years later, Libby reluctantly agrees to meet members of the Kill Club, true crime enthusiasts who bicker over famous cases. She’s shocked to learn most of them believe Ben is innocent and the real killer is still on the loose. Though initially interested only in making a quick buck hocking family memorabilia, Libby is soon drawn into the club’s pseudo-investigation, and begins to question what exactly she saw—or didn’t see—the night of the tragedy. Flynn fluidly moves between cynical present-day Libby and the hours leading up to the murders through the eyes of her family members. When the truth emerges, it’s so twisted that even the most astute readers won’t have predicted it.

March 15, 2009
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 (2006).

On a January night in 1985, Michelle Day, ten, was strangled, her nine-year-old sister, Debby, killed with an ax, and their mother, Patty, stabbed, hacked and shot to death in the family farmhouse. Weeks after jumping out a window and running off in the Kansas snow, Libby Day, seven, testified that her brother Ben, 15, had killed the family, and he was sent to prison for life amid accusations of sex and Satanism. End of story—except that now that the fund well-wishers raised for Libby has run dry, she has to raise some cash pronto, and her family history turns once more into an ATM. A letter from Lyle Wirth promises her a quick $500 to attend the annual convention of the Kill Club, whose members gather to trade theories about unsolved crimes. When self-loathing Libby ("Draw a picture of my soul, it'd be a scribble with fangs") realizes that none of the club members believes her story, she reluctantly agrees to earn some more cash by digging up the leading players: Ben, whose letters she's never opened; their long-departed father Runner, who's as greedy and unscrupulous as Libby; Krissi Cates, the little girl who'd spent the day before the murders accusing Ben of molesting her; and Ben's rich, sleazy girlfriend Diondra Wertzner. 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. Only the climax, which is incredible in both good ways and bad, is a letdown.

For most of the wild story's running time, however, every sentence crackles with enough baleful energy to fuel a whole town through the coldest Kansas winter.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

February 15, 2009
Once in a while a book comes along that puts a new spin on an old idea. More than 40 years ago, Truman Capote (with "In Cold Blood") took readers inside the Clutter farmhouse in Holcomb, KS, to show them what it was like to walk in a killer's shoes. Flynn ("Sharp Objects") 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. In order to identify the true killer, an adult Libby Day must come to terms with the traumatic events of her childhood, when her mother and two sisters were slaughtered. Although Flynn sometimes struggles with the large cast of characters she has amassed, each with his or her own set of volatile foibles, and complicates matters by dealing with them in both the present and the past, the tight plotting and engaging characters carry the reader over the few rough patches that appear. For all public libraries.Nancy McNicol, Hamden P.L., CT

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2009
Libby Days mother and two younger sisters were viciously slaughtered when she was seven, and her brother, Ben, against whom she testified, has been incarcerated ever since. Twenty-five years later, Libby is still suffering from the aftereffects of the notorious murders. Although itsometimes takes her days to work up the psychic energy to wash her hair, she is not quite the timorous victim the press makes her out to be. When she finds out that the trust fund set up in her name is about to run out of money (the do-gooders have long sincemoved on tofresh tragedies), shestarts gouging money from members of the Kill Club, a group oftrue-crime fans obsessed withthe Day murders.Greedily pricing family memorabilia, wondering how much the Kill Club creeps will pony up for an old birthday card, she learns that none of them believes her brother committed the crime.As she starts investigating, the narrative returns to the day of the murders, intercutting Libbys current-day hunt with the actual events of the day. Despite the fact that the ending is known from the get-go, Flynn (Sharp Objects, 2006) injects these chapters with unbearable tension. And unlovable Libby, mean-spirited and greedy, shows her true colors and her deep courage.A gritty, rivetingthriller with a one-of-a-kind, tart-tongued heroine.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)