In this ”fast-paced, morbidly addictive novel of chilling infatuation” (Iain Reid, bestselling author of I’m Thinking of Ending Things)–perfect for fans of Caroline Kepnes’s Hidden Bodies and Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter series–a family man with a habit of digging up the past catches the attention of a serial killer who is determined to keep his secrets uncovered. For years, unbeknownst to his wife …
For years, unbeknownst to his wife and teenage daughter, Martin Reese has been illegally buying police files on serial killers and obsessively studying them, using them as guides to find the missing bodies of victims. He doesn’t take any souvenirs, just photos that he stores in an old laptop, and then he turns in the results anonymously. Martin sees his work as a public service, a righting of wrongs.
Detective Sandra Whittal sees the situation differently. On a meteoric rise in police ranks due to her case‑closing efficiency, Whittal is suspicious of the mysterious source she calls the Finder, especially since he keeps leading the police right to the bodies. How can he know where all these bodies are located if he’s not the one putting them there?
On his latest dig, Martin searches for the first kill of Jason Shurn, the early 1990s murderer who may have been responsible for the disappearance of his wife’s sister. But when he arrives at the site, he finds more than just bones. There’s a freshly killed body–a young and missing Seattle woman–lying there. Someone else knew where Jason Shurn left the corpses of his victims…and that someone isn’t happy that Martin has been going around digging up his work. And when a crooked cop with a tenuous tie to Martin vanishes, Whittal begins to zero in on the Finder.
“A wickedly smart thriller that manages to be both chilling and wry” (Amy Stuart, bestselling author of Still Mine), Find You in the Dark will haunt you long after you turn the final page.
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What an amazing concept for a story. This was something completely different to what I normally read. I loved the relationships between the characters. The story slowed down in certain places before picking back up again. A terrific twist in the tale too.
I really liked the plot development of this book. Martin Reese is obsessed with finding the long-forgotten remains of women who were the victims of a serial killer. His own wife, Ellen, is the sister of Tinsley (who vanished 20 years ago and is the suspected victim of a serial killer). Martin, himself, has a dark past and a juvenile record. I had mixed feelings about him as part of me wanted to feel that what he was doing was a great service to the families of the missing girls, but the other part of me questioned his true intentions (suspecting that finding the bodies was more to feed his own compulsions). This book kept my interest and the end had me wanting more. This ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
3.5/5 rounded up
Find You In The Dark by Nathan Ripley has been sitting around on my backlist on NetGalley and I decided it was time I finally read it. While I’m not sure exactly how I feel about it, it is a unique thriller and unlike any others I have read. I was incredibly intrigued by the plot of a man digging up graves of the victims of serial killers, and while I love the theory, I wasn’t a huge fan of how it was executed. However, since this is a debut novel, I can understand how it might be lacking a bit, and I still really enjoyed it.
I listened to the audio and am a big fan of Corey Brill who narrates. He is also a narrator for The Troop which is a book I loved the audio of, and it was nice to be familiar with him going into it. There is nothing crazy about the audio, but Brill brought the book to life and he is incredibly easy to listen to which always helps. Find You In The Dark is also great on audio since it’s a bit on the slower side. However, it was super dark and twisted, and this is definitely a disturbing read and not for the faint of heart. I love a gritty thriller, and that is exactly what this one was. I have Ripley’s next book as well and am still looking forward to it even though I didn’t love this one as much as I had hoped to.
Thank you to the publisher for my advance review copy via NetGalley. All opinions and thoughts are my own.
The right amount of twists and creepy factors ~ trudging off secretly by yourself looking for the remains of victims left by serial killers. Martin Reese does this because of his past, his sister. No closure, no true evidence. It was a bit lacking in build up and suspense. I do applaud the originality of the premise though.
Is Martin a good guy or bad guy? Does his wife know what he does? A twisted plot that keeps you guessing until you know; or do you? You may be a little uncomfortable with what you’ll accept, or maybe not. Read it and see!
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.
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.
Nathan Ripley delivers nothing short of a a page turning grisly thriller in his first novel Find You in the Dark. Martin Reese is a likable guy with a somewhat checkered past who gets into BIG trouble. We want to be right about Martin, but Ripley seeds us with just enough doubt about his main character’s complete innocence.
As Martin arrogantly pursues justice on his own for the disappearance and likely murder of his sister-in law, he finds he is in over his head. What makes this read so compelling is that Ripley, in detailing Martin’s snowballing predicament, is deftly capable of putting us at the center of Martin’s fear, almost making it our own. As Martin teeters on losing control of his life and loved ones at every turn, Ripley’s delivery has us trying to figure our own way out if we were to somehow find ourselves, through little fault of our own, at the mercy of the dark side of society.
Adding to our enjoyment (and at times our fear and anxiety), Ripley’s character development is exquisite throughout. I particularly liked the well developed side story relationship between detective Whittal and her romantic and professional partner Chris Gabriel. The interplay between the two is refreshingly genuine.
No thriller is complete without a perfectly crafted ending, and here author Ripley delivers completely.
On the downside, some dialog transitions from character to character are difficult to follow, and some detailed cross references to earlier chapters had me backtracking too much. While this is at times frustrating, it is a bearable annoyance given the rest of this well written gem.
Rating – 4.5 out of 5 stars
I finished Find You in the Dark with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it does have the creepy vibe I’d expect from a thriller, but that gripping need to turn one more page is missing. Despite Martin’s ‘hobby,’ the pacing is very slow for most of the book. Parts of the story are repetitive and Martin’s inner monologue was drawn out and much of time, not all that interesting. It reached a point that I found myself enjoying the scenes with Martin’s too smart for her own good, teenage daughter more than the disturbing parts of the story. Her sense of humor and sass did add some levity to an otherwise dark and sometimes tedious tale. I think part of my disappointment lay in the way things played out in the book. We know from the blurb that Martin draws the attention of a serial killer, and I expected there to be something of a cat and mouse game between them. That I didn’t get that is on me and my own preconceptions, but considering the length of the book, I just expected more. In the end, the story did have a lot of potential and I enjoyed some parts of it, but other parts came up lacking for me, leaving me with a bit of a ‘meh’ feeling.
This is a dark and creepy story about a guy who researches serial killers and digs up the graves of their victims for fun. All without his wife ever suspecting there is anything wrong with him going of “camping” by himself. There are lots of twists and an insight into how someone can be manipulated into doing some terrible things with the right motivation. The book is well written and the characters are well developed, if a little flawed, and there are enough plot twists to keep on the edge of your seat.
Find You in the Dark is a chilling, dark thriller. It has been referred to as part Dexter and part The Talented Mr. Ripley. Martin Reese is indeed probably a bit of both of them. He has a hobby if you can call it that, Martin goes around digging up bodies that have been put in their grave by a serial killer. The serial killer is watching Martin. The police are watching Martin : is he the killer or the finder.
Martin is diabolically clever but that doesn’t protect his family.
I couldn’t decide whether I like Martin, he did bring peace to families by finding the victims bodies. On the other hand , there is something quite scary about Martin not to mention the people that surround him.
The pages turn quickly, you second guess how it is going to end. It will make a great movie.
I highly recommend it even if I will be looking over my shoulder for awhile and be very suspicious of shovels.