by Gillian Flynn (Author)
When two girls, aged nine and ten are abducted and killed in Wind Gap, Missouri, Camille Preaker is sent back to her home town to investigate and report on the crimes. Camille, self-described 'white trash from old money', is the daughter of one of the richest families in town. Long-haunted by a childhood tragedy and estranged from her mother for years, Camille suddenly finds herself installed once again in her family's Victorian mansion, reacquainting herself with her distant mother and the half-sister she barely knows, a precocious 13-year-old who holds a disquieting grip on the town and surrounds herself with a group of vampish teenage girls. As Camille struggles to remain detached from the evidence, her relationship with her neurotic, hypochondriac mother threatens to topple her hard-won mental stability. Working alongside the police chief and a special agent from out of town, Camille tries to uncover the mystery of who killed these little girls and why. But there are deeper psychological puzzles: Why does Camille identify so strongly with the dead girls? And how is this connected to the death of another sister years earlier?
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 272
Publisher: W&N
Published: 03 Jan 2007
ISBN 10: 0297851527
ISBN 13: 9780297851523
Book Overview: 'To say this is a terrific debut novel is really too mild...a relentlessly creepy family saga. I found myself dreading the last thirty pages or so, but was helpless to stop turning them. Then, after the lights were out, the story just stayed there in my head, coiled and hissing, like a snake in a cave' STEPHEN KING 'Sharp Objects is one of the freshest debut thrillers to come around in a long while. It's a gripping, substantive story, stripped of cliche, and crafted with great style. The characters are refreshingly real, burdened with psychological issues that enrich the story. And the ending, which I was positive I could predict, is unpredictable' AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS 'A stylish, and compelling debut. A real winner' HARLAN COBEN Donna Tartt meets The Bitch Goddess Notebook and The Virgin Suicides in this intense and haunting psychological thriller. Will also appeal to anyone who enjoyed the films Heathers, Dolores Claibourne or Mean Girls 'The Stepford polish of desperate housewives, the backstabbing viciousness of drug-gobbling, sex-for-favors Mean Girls, the simmering rage bound to boil over...Piercingly effective and genuinely terrifying' Kirkus
Prizes: Winner of CWA New Blood Dagger 2007 and CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger 2007. Shortlisted for CWA Duncan Lawrie Dagger 2007.