#9: Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

A young girl is the only survivor of a family massacre at a rural farmhouse, and her fractured recollections of the night convict her older brother; years down a troubled road later, she begins to rethink her memories in Gillian Flynn's Dark Places.

After the success of Gone Girl, Flynn's earlier novels are getting another look.  This might be my favorite thus far, an inky-black story with often unpleasant characters, but fascinating throughout.  The story flashes back and forth in time, from multiple points of view, and covers topics from heavy metal Satanism to farm failures to contemporary cults of morbid celebrity.

Flynn is a very solid writer whose dark imaginings aren't for all tastes, though I find the novels worthwhile.

I borrowed this from a lending library in Florida where my in-laws snowbird, and read it all that week.

#25: Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

A series of child murders strike a small town, and a troubled reporter--who fled the town years ago--returns to cover the story, and pick at old family wounds, in Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects.

With the runaway success of Gone Girl, Flynn's earlier novels are getting another look.  Although this shares some thematic similarities--unreliable journalism, small-town secrets, returning to a place you never wanted to see again, and so on--Sharp Objects is a much more gothic-flavored story, right down to the creepy old mansion and the weird siblings.

The storytelling is much more straightforward (whereas Gone Girl double-backed and triple-backed on itself) but is just about as unsettling as more truths about the reporter's childhood come to light, and how that childhood could be connected to what is happening now is revealed.

I listened to a good audiobook version on loan from the Morrisson-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana and am eager to seek out the rest of Flynn's writing.

#7: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

A young woman goes missing on her fifth wedding anniversary, naturally putting the husband in the police's sights; but nothing is what it seems in Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl.

Despite the contemporary trappings, this tale, told in both spouse's points of view in alternating chapters, is a classic example of a favorite subgenre in noir, the unreliable narrator.  The reader will be kept guessing through one surprising revelation after the next.

Gone Girl is a quick read, but is a notch above the average thriller with clever, sophisticated plotting and characterization and solid writing overall.

Not surprisingly, Gone Girl is about to be what I suspect will be a popular movie.  Recommended for thriller fans and beach readers.

My enjoyment of the novel was lifted more so, I suspect, by a very good audio book version that I borrowed from Morrisson-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana.