The Spicy Book Club discussion

★★★☆☆

In A Flicker in the Dark, Chloe Davis is a psychiatrist whose father was convicted of a series of murders of young girls when she was 12 years old. Now, 20 years later, when girls start to go missing again, her memories of that terrible summer come rushing back…can we say FUCK!

I would say the main strong points of this book are the compelling premise and a mostly solidly plotted-out mystery. The killer is pretty guessable, but there’s also enough other suspects and possibilities to keep you on your toes. I think it did a good job of planting clues while offering up enough snarls in the plot to make it a little less obvious. Some of the smaller details make less sense than I’d ideally like, but those were mostly more minor aspects of the story.

If you’re someone who likes to “figure out” murder mysteries before the killer is revealed, this one might be a good pick for you. (And there’s a decent chance you’ll probably figure it out.) I felt like the resolution was reasonable enough that it made the book feel worthwhile to read. Also, if you like serial-killer-type murder mysteries in general, I think this one makes good use of its serial-killer-y components. Personally, I enjoyed the read for this reason but Hell yeah I was read out by page 160.

So, overall, I thought this was a decent mystery-thriller as far as books in this genre go. Still, I think one issue for me was that the overall tone of the book was a little dour and depressing, and not in a good way. The main character has PTSD due to her father’s murder conviction, and she has a pill-popping problem. This basically means that she’s kind of an unstable, anxious wreck throughout the entire book, and I generally don’t tend to like protagonists like that. I just find them tiresome, and I don’t think it’s a fun or interesting headspace to read about for 300 pages.
To be fair, this type of protagonist pops up a lot in mystery-thrillers, and I never really like it. So, I realize my opinion on this is fairly subjective and perhaps you won’t mind it so much. Beyond that, she and other characters also behave in mildly nonsensical ways like withholding information and doing incriminating things in obvious ways. I understand why this happens in mystery-thrillers, but it did feel a little contrived. I have a hard time being super enthusiastic about it mostly because I just don’t tend to enjoy thrillers focused on depressed, anxious protagonists with substance abuse problems. It just gives the whole book a kind of a tiresome, lugubrious atmosphere, which is not my favorite.

That said, while I wasn’t blown away by this book, I’d say A Flicker in the Dark is worth checking out if you’re looking for something for your mystery-thriller queue.

SPOILERS START HERE. You’ve been warned!

There were a few aspects of the plot that I think could have been done better. The whole thing about Lena knowing about Tara King’s murder seemed unnecessary and made no fucking sense. She witnessed a murder and decided to provoke the killer over the course of three weeks instead of going to the police? Nonsense/ WTF. Why would she keep hanging around his house? It’s even more annoying since it’s a completely unnecessary detail. Just say that Cooper killed her since she was a bad influence on his sister or cause he just wanted to and be done with it.

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