Tangled Web UK Review December 2007
Sharp Objects by
Gillian Flynn
hbk out December 06
Published by Weidenfeld
at £12.99
This is a debut novel but the prelim. pages start with two full pages of
plaudits from the 'heavies' on both sides of the Atlantic. Though I often
disagree with the pundits, wondering sometimes if they have actually
read the book, this time I agree with their fulsome commendations, as Ms
Flynn is a really powerful writer. She is the television critic for a major
US media magazine and can certainly hit where it hurts.
This is first-person story of Camille Preaker, a woman journalist on a not
very prestigious Chicago newspaper, who is sent by her editor back to her
small home town in Missouri to cover the death of young girl and the
disappearance of another. Reluctantly she complies and stays with her
mother, a neurotic rich socialite who has an equally odd second husband.
There is a much younger half-sister, around whom much of the story
revolves, and another had died years before, accounting from some of
Camille's later problems. It soon transpires that Camille has recently got
over several behavioural problems, including drink and self-harm, the
cutting of words into almost every square inch of visible skin, giving rise
to the title of the book.
The second missing girl soon appears in bizarre circumstances and
Camille becomes involved in the investigation, sometime with and often
against, the efforts of the police.
As an expose of the tensions and machinations beneath the smug surface
of small-town America, this book is unequalled. It is not a happy story
but I am sure the author will soon be established as a major figure in
American crime-writing.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
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