allthepage

I’ve just read two books that were coincidentally, though strikingly, similar. The first, Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, was hailed in the jacket blurbs as the Second Coming of murder fiction. The Denver Post called it “Hitchcock visits Stephen King.” Um, no. Not even. Stephen, himself, wrote, “To say this is a terrific debut novel is really too mild…An admirably nasty piece of work, elevated by sharp writing and sharper insights.” Okay, yeah, I could go there. The main character, Camille, is very unusual and compelling. The more squeamish among you may want to know in advance that Camille is a cutter, and even that aspect of her personality is a-typical. Camille is asked to return to her hometown, scene of an unhappy, if monied childhood, to cover the murders of two pre-teen girls. Confronting the past, and focusing on the gruesome present, while staying sane and somewhat objective quickly becomes overwhelming for Camille, who is not too long out of a mental ward.

The next book I picked up was A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read. In this story, Madeline, known as Bunny to her adoring husband, stumbles upon a link between a family member and a horrific murder. While she is generally a writer of fluff pieces for her local weekly, she now finds herself in a very sticky web of family and small town secrets, highly conflicted about the story she somehow lobbied to write. Like Camille, Madeline comes from old money, but a somewhat less painful, albeit odd childhood. Both women reminded me of who  Kinsey Millhone might have become had she escaped the alphabet and developed darker habits–and that’s a compliment. I liked both books a lot, I just thought A Field of Darkness was a little richer, more dense. I’m excited about Cornelia Read’s The Crazy School, which came out in January. Might even spring for the hardcover…I’ll watch for new offerings from Flynn, as well, even if she isn’t the Second Coming of King.

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