Book Review: Find You In The Dark by Nathan Ripley

May 09, 2018

This book is about a man with a very weird hobby.

Find You In The Dark by Nathan Ripley
Thriller
To Be Released in the US: June 19, 2018
Amazon ♦ Goodreads

In this chilling and disquieting debut thriller 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 wants anything but his secrets uncovered.

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. Even if he isn’t the one leaving bodies behind, how can she be sure he won’t start soon?

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 among remains that were left there decades ago. 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.

Hunted by a real killer and by Whittal, Martin realizes that in order to escape, he may have to go deeper into the killer’s dark world than he ever thought…

My Thoughts:

Martin is a family guy who has what some may consider a very creepy hobby. No, he doesn’t collect Living Dead Dolls or horror movies like the rest of weirdos, he digs up the corpses of people murdered by serial killers and taunts the police with his ghastly finds. His wife and daughter have no idea what he’s doing on the side even though he comes home dirty and smelly after a long day of playing with old bones. The police also haven’t a clue.

Find You In The Dark has a twisted and unique to me story. On his last dig, something goes awry that may expose Martin’s strange little hobby to the world and put he and his family in danger. Martin will do anything to keep his family safe (even though one member doesn’t deserve his loyalty, if you ask me) and that is all I am going to say about the plot.

I love being in the head of messed up people rather than being stuck reading a story from the lead investigators POV the entire time. Martin, a serial killer and the police officer who gets involved in the case all share page space and I enjoyed that. I see a lot of people taking issue with the female officer but she didn’t bug me at all. The person I didn’t like was Martin’s wife. She was spoiled and selfish and every conversation with her was insufferable and I kept hoping bad things would happen to her. If my spouse took off for a few days and came home smelling of anything foreign, never mind death (frigging death, people!), you can bet he’d be answering questions until his lips fell off. This woman? All she cared about was helicoptering her teenager and getting her boutique ready for opening day. Not a nosy bone in that one’s body. How is she even a wife?!

This wasn’t a fast paced book and it took me longer to finish than I had hoped. Something about the pace was just a wee bit off but I liked the strange turns the story took. There aren’t fifty shocking twists but it walks down some dark and unexpected paths. If you don’t mind a slower pace and like to spend a little time with deviants this one is for you!