I was provided a complimentary copy of this book by NetGalley. I was not compensated for this review and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. I was not required to write a positive review.
Find You in the Dark by Nathan Ripley Published by Simon and Schuster on June 19, 2018
Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Thrillers
Pages: 368
Source: NetGalley
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A chilling debut thriller in the vein of Dexter and The Talented Mr Ripley.
Martin Reese has a hobby: he digs up murder victims. He buys stolen police files on serial killers, and uses them to find and dig up missing bodies. Calls in the results anonymously, taunting the police for their failure to do their job.
Detective Sandra Whittal takes that a little personally. She’s suspicious of the mysterious caller, who she names the Finder. Maybe he’s the one leaving the bodies behind. If not, who’s to say he won’t start soon?
As Whittal begins to zero in on the Finder, Martin makes a shocking discovery. It seems someone—someone lethal—is very unhappy about the bodies he’s been digging up.
Hunted by a cop, hunted by a killer. To escape and keep his family safe, Martin may have to go deeper into the world of murder than he ever imagined.
The synopsis of this book drew me. It’s been a minute since I’ve read a thriller and when they are well done I really love them. This one sent me scurrying to the Google. Dexter. The Talented Mr. Ripley. Both things I was not familiar with. One a movie the other a TV show. To be fair, I’m not a huge movie person so it would make sense I wasn’t up on this older gem. The other a TV show from a cable giant, that I’ve never had. OK, a bit of research that didn’t help me at all really and I dove into this book. And then floundered and futzed about. I sputtered like a transmission low on fluid trying to get up speed and change gears going uphill.
I’ve gone a read some other reviews and the term ‘slow burn’ resonates strong with this book. It does not jump up and grab you by the pulse and make you feel like everything is spinning all at once. It more eases into gear and then slowly grinds through the gears. And I’m pretty sure it skips a few. Look at me with these car references and I’m car illiterate. Though I have dealt with leaky transmission fluid and I love driving a stick. Sorry, side rails again. I struggled with this book. I didn’t not like it, I didn’t love it, it just kinda sits there as this thing I read. It didn’t make my heart race and my pulse pound like a thriller should do.
I really don’t feel like I know how to review this book. It is an interesting concept that left me sometimes confused, sometimes engaged, sometimes invested, and sometimes lost. I feel like there were ideas that weren’t addressed that would have made sense to me. Like the idea of why the detective thinks that the Finder is merely a step away from becoming the killer. I mean to me it’s like a totally opposite concept and I didn’t get the connection there. Some of the other characterizations did that for me as well. The cloak and dagger was sometimes too vague. The basic root of it all is it is a great story with a good bit of thrill and intrigue. I just feel like perhaps someone more familiar than a Google search with Dexter and The Talented Mr. Ripley would enjoy this a lot more than I did.
About Nathan Ripley
Nathan Ripley is the pen name of literary fiction writer and journalist Naben Ruthnum. His stories and essays have appeared in The Walrus, Hazlitt, Sight & Sound, and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, among other places. He lives in Toronto. Visit him at NabenRuthnum.com or follow him on Twitter @NabenRuthnum.
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