Libby Day was seven years old when her brother murdered her mother and sisters. Now, years later, she finds herself broke, the only foreseeable income in reopening her own case with the backing of a murder club, convinced of her brother's innocence.
I really enjoyed Gone Girl which I read earlier this year, and a few of my friends told me shortly after that it was great, but didn't hold a candle to Dark Places. It's taken me a while to get to this, but I found it a month ago in a second hand book store, and while I think the opening scene was amazing, it took me a while to engage with the narrative. Libby's a lowly thing at the start, distasteful, and her voice, fully realised, has a hell of a bite.
But I fell in love with her in the end. A desperate, scrambling thing, a scavenger at the edges of life - a role so typically reserved for male protagonists. Libby was unappealing until she wasn't, until you were so on board with her, on this twisted journey into the past and the future. It amounts into this tense, wrought story with a deeper emotional impact than a lot of books I've read recently.
4.5 out of 5 secret notes.
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