Sunday, May 17, 2009

Gillian Flynn - Dark Places

I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ.

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in "The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnake, Kansas."
as her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but she survived and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer.
Twenty-five years later, Ben sits in prison, and troubled Libby lives off the dregs of a trust fund created by well wishers who've long forgotten her.

The Kill Club is a macabre secret society obsessed with notorious crimes. When they locate Libby and pump her for details - proof they hope that may free Ben - Libby hatches a plan to profit off her tragic history. For a fee, she'll reconnect with players from that night and report her findings to the club ... and maybe she'll admit her testimony wasn't so solid after all.
As Libby's search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the narrative flashes back to January 2, 1985. The events of that day are relayed through the eyes of Libby's doomed family members - including Ben, a loner whose rage over his shiftless father and their failing farm have drive3n him into a disturbing friendship with the new girl in town.
Piece by piece, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started - on the run from the killer.

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Libby Day's family was slaughtered when she was seven years old. Since then she's passed time living of a the fund well wishers built for her. 25 years is a long time and now the fund is at its end. With no education or working experience chances are that sooner or later she won't be able to pay her rent and what than ?
When Lyle Wright approaches her in the name of the The Kill Club, a society that of crime fans, approaches her and offers money just for talking in front of some people about her past she's more than desperate enough to accept the offer but soon learns that the majority of the club believes in Ben's innocence and thinks she was coached into her testimony against her brother.
Desperation brings her to agree to talk to people of her past for money and she soon finds herself thrown into a past she didn't know about. Beginning to believe that maybe she was coached she learns about the dark side of her brother's nature and the ultimate conclusion what really happened on January 2, 1985.

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Dark Places is an easy, conclusive read, with three main characters: Libby in the present, Ben and Libby's mother Patty Day in the past. It is difficult to find any sympathy for the protagonists except for the mother but the lack of character doesn't hurt the whole story which is a great mystery.
Some things add up strangely and make the book especially in the end very weak but ultimately it kept me reading probably because it was such an easy read where one got everything served on a platter.

Rating:
Visit Gillian Flynn.

Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books (May 5, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307341569
ISBN-13: 978-0307341563

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