"Gillian Flynn's writing is compulsively good. I would rather read her than just about any other crime writer."--Kate Atkinson

"Dark Places grips you from the first page and doesn't let go."--Karin Slaughter

"With her blistering debut Sharp Objects, Gillian Flynn hit the ground running. Dark Places demonstrates that was no fluke."--Val McDermid

"Dark Places' Libby Day may seem unpleasant company at first-she's humoring those with morbid curiosities about her family's murders in order to get money out of them-but her steely nature and sharp tongue are compelling. 'I have a meanness inside me, 'she says, 'real as an organ.'Yes she does, and by the end of this pitch-black novel, after we've loosened our grip on its cover and started breathing deeply again, we're glad Flynn decided to share it."--Jessa Crispin, NPR

"Flynn returns to the front ranks of emerging thriller writers with her aptly titled new novel . . . Those who prefer their literary bones with a little bloody meat will be riveted."--Portland Oregonian

"Gillian Flynn may turn out to be a more gothic John Irving for the 21st century, a writer who uses both a surgeon's scalpel and a set of rusty harrow discs to rip the pretty face off middle America."--San Jose Mercury News

"The world of this novel is all underside, all hard flinch, and Flynn's razor-sharp prose intensifies this effect as she knuckles in on every sentence. . . . The slick plotting in Dark Places will gratify the lover of a good thriller-but so, too, will Flynn's prose, which is ferocious and unrelenting and pure pleasure from word one."--Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Gillian Flynn's second novel, Dark Places, proves that her first--Sharp Objects--was no fluke. . . . tough, surprising crime fiction that dips its toes in the deeper waters of literary fiction."--Chicago Sun-Times

"Flynn fully inhabits Libby--a damaged woman whose world has resided entirely in her own head for the majority of her life and who is prone to dark metaphors: 'Draw a picture of my soul, and it'd be a scribble with fangs.' Half the fun of Dark Places is Libby's swampy psychology, which Flynn leads us through without the benefit of hip waders."--Time Out Chicago

"Deliciously creepy...Flynn follows 250-some pages of masterful plotting and character development with a speedway pileup of pulse-pounding revelations." --Chicago Reader

"A genuinely shocking denouement." --Romantic Times

"Sardonic, riveting . . . Like Kate Atkinson, Flynn has figured out how to fuse the believable characters, silken prose and complex moral vision of literary fiction to the structure of a crime story. . . . You can sense trouble coming like a storm moving over the prairie, but can't quite detect its shape." --Laura Miller, Salon

"These characters are fully realized--so true they could step off the page . . . hints of what truly happened to the Day family feel painfully, teasingly paced as they forge an irresistible trail to the truth. . . . Could. Not. Stop. Reading."--Bookreporter

"Libby's voice is a pitch-perfect blend of surliness and emotionally charged imagery. . . . The Kansas in these pages is a bleak, deterministic place where bad blood and lies generate horrifically unintended consequences. Though there's little redemption here, Flynn manages to unearth the humanity buried beneath the squalor."--Bloomberg

"Set in the bleak Midwest of America, this evocation of small-town life and dysfunctional people is every bit as horribly fascinating as Capote's journalistic retelling of a real family massacre, In Cold Blood, which it eerily resembles. This is only Flynn' s second crime novel-her debut was the award-winning Sharp Objects-and demonstrates even more forcibly her precocious writing ability and talent for the macabre."--Daily Mail (UK)

"Flynn's second novel is a wonderful evocation of drab small-town life. The time-split narrative works superbly and the atmosphere is eerily macabre--Dark Places is even better than the author's award-winning Sharp Objects."--The Guardian (UK)

"A gritty, riveting thriller with a one-of-a-kind, tart-tongued heroine." --Booklist (starred review)

"Flynn's second crime thriller tops her impressive debut, Sharp Objects. . . . When the truth emerges, it's so twisted that even the most astute readers won't have predicted it."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)