Gillian Flynn, Dark Places ****

Dark Places is a very good thriller that falls just short of literary excellence. The characters are compelling (albeit unheroic), the Midwestern setting is well painted, and the story kept me guessing until the very end. Flynn's writing is a cut above most pulp writers: I was interested enough in Libby's character that I would almost read her story without the thriller plot.

When Libby Day was seven years old, her family was murdered in their Kansas home. Her testimony helped convict her older brother of the crime. Twenty-five years later, Libby still suffers from the effects of the horrific crime. She needs money, so she agrees to re-investigate the crime — for a fee from a club that believes her brother is innocent. The story alternates between the present-day investigation and the days leading up to the murders.

I appreciated Libby's cynical motivations and the realistic stresses that her family endured before the crime. The only thing I didn't care for was the surfeit of major plot developments that all happened on the day of the murder. One of the present-day characters even mentions it:

Doesn't this all seem too weird, like we are missing something obvious? A girl tells a lie, a farm goes under, a gambler's bets are called in by a, jeez, by a Devil-worshiping bookie. All on the same day. (p 283)

It's a typical problem with this sort of book — the author needs to provide several possible motives to keep the reader guessing — but it stuck out particularly because Dark Places is otherwise so credible.