(Weidenfeld & Nicolson, $36.99)Disturbing is probably the best way to describe this unusual thriller so if you are at all sensitive or squeamish, step away from this book, move right along, nothing to see here, folks. If, on the other hand, you find most contemporary mysteries too tame or predictable, you’ll lap up this debut novel from top US TV critic Gillian Flynn.
Camille Preaker is a beautiful but haunted thirtysomething bashing out crime stories for a low-rate Chicago newspaper when her boss sends her back to her hometown, Wind Gap, to report on two abducted girls.
Camille’s not your usual heroine. She drinks like a fish for a start, and her body is covered with scars from where she has carved words into her skin, a little problem for which she has just done a stint in rehab.
Back home in the seething mass of dysfunction that is Wind Gap, Camille is reunited with her mother, who frankly would drive a saint to drink, and her precocious half-sister. With the help of a spunky out-of-town cop, she then tries to uncover the mystery of what happened to the two little girls and, more importantly, to her beloved sister whose death 20 years before certainly didn’t help Camille’s delicate state of mind.
our heroine can be a little annoying at times – her choices don’t always endear her to you – but if you can believe what a dreadful family she comes from, you can understand why she is not the full quid. Ultimately, any qualms I had about her or the story in general were overcome by the freshness of the book: it should definitely keep addicts of all things creepy satisfied.
In fact, possibly the world’s most famous horror writer, Stephen King, had this to say: “After the lights were out, the story just stayed there in my head, coiled and hissing, like a snake in a cave.” Brrrrrr. If it’s frightening the guy who wrote The Shining, you know it’s scary.
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