Flicker in the Dark

Liked it. Good twist.

I knew who the killer was from when she first introduced the character. What I didn't know was all the twist involved before we got to the end.

Wow, I'm honestly almost at a loss for words immediately after finishing this. I put the spoiler tag on because I feel like in order to properly review this book I have to have some spoilers, but I will warn you before any very large spoilers and I'll put them at the very end so as to not completely ruin it. Our protagonist is Doctor Chloe Davis, a psychologist, who lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Very early on in the story we learn that Chloe's father is a serial killer. He is currently serving six life sentences for kidnapping and murdering six teenage girls when Chloe was only slightly younger than the victims. Chloe and her brother, Cooper, struggled after their father was jailed. Their mother, understandably, did not take his arrest and conviction well, and tried to take her own life, leaving her in a semi vegetative state. This left both Chloe and Cooper as essential orphans at the ages of 12 and 15. If there's one thing Chloe has felt like she can always count on in her life, it is her brother Cooper. They have always had a very close relationship, not only playing together as children but Cooper always acted as Chloe's protector as well. Chloe hasn't had the best luck, we'll say, with relationships in her life. However she is currently engaged, and Daniel seems to be the perfect fiance. He is attentive, loving, and takes very good care of Chloe. They don't know each other very well admittedly, they've only been dating a year, but they do seem very much in love. With only a month until her wedding, Chloe is very stressed out. At the same time locally, there is a large news story about a missing teenage girl. While she initially looks vaguely familiar to Chloe, she doesn't give too much attention to it as she is understandably stressed from planning a wedding and dealing with her workload. At some point the news of this poor girl's disappearance does start to get to Chloe with her history. Chloe understandably has a history of mental distress, especially around missing teenage females. Her worst fears are imagined when other girls go missing and their bodies start to turn up. One of the missing girls, and now dead bodies, ends up being one of Chloe's patients and she was the last person to see her alive. Here is where some of the more spoiler type items are coming up, still no big spoilers here though... When Chloe starts to suspect her fiance of foul play, the pieces of the puzzle do seem to fit very well. Especially considering items of information that she's getting from her new journalist friend Aaron. The more she investigates the guiltier Daniel begins to look. Daniel himself does exhibit some red flag behaviors, and even before Chloe began to suspect him I thought some of his behaviors were fairly scary, like how often he squeezes Chloe's arms and her neck both in everyday life and when they're intimate. Considering that the dead girls were strangled that made me pause. Daniel is also so perfect, almost too perfect. At the same time I also felt Chloe was too quick to trust this journalist. He did reach out to her because he was writing an article about her family, which in the past has not turned out well for her or her family. For whatever reason she feels very comfortable with Aaron and begins to investigate, against the wishes of the police, on her own. And here's where the big spoiler comes in, I will not be spoiling who is the ultimate 'bad guy' but bigger spoilers ahead... I knew it wasn't Daniel. First of all, it's never the person that the author is leading you to. Okay, maybe not never, but that's not a good thriller. Also I was really rooting for Daniel to be as perfect as he seemed. I was also always suspicious of the person who did turn out to be the bad guy. Their behavior also struck me as odd on multiple occasions, however the author did a very good job of leading you away from them in a non obvious manner. I will definitely be purchasing and reading whichever books come out next by this author, I know this is her debut so I will be keeping an eye out for the next one that everyone seems to be saying that she's already writing.

Story wraps up nicely, and ending has a full circle moment for all characters involved. Did not expect the exact ending!

Thrilling, twists and turns with every page. Loved listening to it!