Flicker in the Dark

Twenty years ago, then twelve-year-old Chloe Davis and her older brother Cooper watched helplessly as their dad, the man Chloe ran to every single day for safety and protection, was taken from their home by police for the serial killings of six teenage girls in their little town of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana.  In that moment, Chloe learned that monsters aren't always in the shadows or under your bed - sometimes they're right in front of you.

Skip forward to today, Chloe is now a psychologist with a home and private practice in Baton Rouge, planning her upcoming wedding to perfect, supportive Daniel, and helping over-protective Cooper take turns visiting their mother, Mona, in an assisted living facility - a situation necessitated by Mona's mental and physical trauma after her husband was taken away.

Both Chloe and Cooper are fighting their own demons from the past.  Chloe is afraid of everything and tries to medicate it all away with pills she surreptitiously prescribes to herself in Daniel's name and the nearest bottle of booze.  It isn't helped when a nosy reporter from the NY Times calls one day hoping to revisit the past as part of a 20-year anniversary piece, and is further exacerbated when two new girls - both of whom she knows - go missing within miles of her new home. Is history repeating itself?

Chloe is your classic unreliable narrator, often referencing her difficulty separating what's real from what isn't, which isn't helped by her pharmaceutical habits.  She's paranoid, convinced that these new victims are someone specifically toying with her, setting her on her own amateur investigative path to find who's copying her imprisoned father's past actions, since virtually no one else believes her suspicions.

 

What hidden secrets does she find and what happens when she uncovers them?  Peek in those closets and find out!  I think you'll like what you discover.

First, let me say: Wow, that was one of the BEST prologues I’ve ever read!  It set the mood perfectly and sucked me in from the very first sentence. The story is solid and structured in an interesting way, integrating Chloe’s past memories seamlessly into the current narrative, where she's simply lost in thought, dreaming or having flashbacks, rather than using the stale past/present chapters format. The humid, Spanish moss-draped trees and swamps of Louisiana provided such a visceral, atmospheric setting, and the suspenseful writing kept me glued to the pages. I read the majority of it in one day - I just had to know who did it!

There are a few downsides, but nothing that ruined my enjoyment.  I suspected part of the ending reveal very early on and turned out to be right, but getting from suspicion to revelation was still fun as Willingham threw in plenty of red herrings and twists to keep me off-balance and doubting myself.  There are plot elements, a couple of which border on ridonculous (ex. the Scrabble tiles and tapping thing ... no. It makes for a good plot device, but again ... no.)  There are a few others as well, so just be prepared to suspend some disbelief.  It'll be worth it.

All-in-all, I can enthusiastically recommend this wonderful debut. Stacy Willingham has given readers a bright spot in the crowded thriller genre and a promising start to her writing career.  I know I'll be eagerly awaiting her future books!

★★★★

Thanks to St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books, NetGalley and author Stacy Willingham for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinions.  It's due for publication on January 11, 2021.