Can you imagine being the child of a serial killer? In Stacy Willingham’s A Flicker in the Dark Chloe Davis is a psychologist in Baton Rouge. She became a psychologist to deal with the trauma of being the daughter of a serial killer. She has a loving, doting fiancé, Daniel. Then one of Chloe’s patients is murdered and she’s once again haunted by her past when six teenage girls were killed. Chloe is determined to not let the past repeat itself which makes her quite the heroine with compelling vulnerability. Her brother, Coop, disagrees with Chloe’s choice of fiancé and is quite vocal about it. Chloe’s mother is in a semiconscious state in a nursing home but has answers Chloe needs not just to the past murders but also to the current ones. Chloe resorts to denial and abusing prescription drugs when she can’t cope. It doesn’t help when a reporter calls because he’s doing a 20th-anniversary story of her father going to prison for the original murders. I guessed the ending pretty early in the book so I didn’t see this as any big twisty book. There were also way too many times when the red herrings were repeated. I did love the small Louisiana town feel with the Crawfish festivities. I also loved the realistic way in which the detective dealt with Chloe and her paranoia. Overall this is a good read.
If you are looking for an indigenous author to support in November, then This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger has a great historical fiction read for you. Krueger is a member of the Anishinaabe ( Ojibwe ) tribe. This dialogue between a bit so likable character Jack and the teen narrator Odie will give you a good idea of the story. “Ask me, God’s right here. In the dirt, the rain, the sky, the trees, the apples, the stars in the cottonwoods. In you and me, too. It’s all connected and it’s all God. Sure this is hard work, but it’s good work because it’s a part of what connects us to this land, Buck. This beautiful, tender land.” Jack in Chapter 20. Odie then replies with his theory about how “God is a tornado.” which refers back to when a tornado killed a loving teacher, Mrs. Frost. The book was originally published in 2019 and is great as an audiobook coming in at 14 hours and 19 minutes on regular speed versus 464 pages of hard copy. ...
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