I imagine everyone has a Lena in their life at some point. A person who comes blazing in like a shooting star and fizzles out just as fast.
A Flicker in the Dark
by Stacy Willingham
Genre: Mystery Thriller
About: Chloe has put her life back together. She's a professional psychologist with her own practice, she's engaged to her dream guy; she's as far removed from her past as she can possibly be. But then the killings begin again. It's close to the twentieth anniversary after all. And this time the killer wants to make sure she's paying attention...
Thoughts
This was a great read. I loved the back and forth from the past to present and how Willingham really seemed to capture a memory with truly evocative writing. Small little details are given such emotional weight and help you piece together this awful history of violence. All the characters have layers to them - both living, deceased, even the ones that we only meet in the past. I really felt like I knew all the players and, when their reveals came, it added to their character rather than pulling the rug out from under me.
It's a pretty flawless thriller. Great writing, interesting characters and plenty of twists. The only drawback for me is simply that, if you're read a lot of mystery thrillers, the reading experience becomes very formulaic. By the 40% mark I knew we must have met our killer and I drew up my list of suspects, made my guesses, and I wasn't wrong. None of the twists were twists for me, although that doesn't mean I didn't think they were well executed. The story made sense, it all came together, it's just it came together in a formula I could see coming.
Overall, I really enjoyed this. I listened to it as an audiobook and it really drew me in.
Comments