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A review by elizabethtye
A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham
2.0
2.25/5 stars. Audiobook. I hate having expectations in a book because I am usually let down. So many people have hyped this book up! An old coworker went on about this book on her Instagram, so I downloaded it on Audible. The narrator was okay. I was excited to see that the book was set in Louisiana, but that was a big disappointment. The writing is okay, but the story has so many holes and the protagonist is just annoying. Chloe is a medical psychologist, but she has a lot of problems that she ignores. She is a downer, unable to heal herself from a traumatic experience. Below, I made a list of some issues with this book and there are some minor spoilers that do not really ruin much. I am not sure I would recommend this book; if you don’t expect much from thrillers I guess it would be okay. As someone new to the genre, I can only hope that there are better thrillers out there. The whodunnit was so obvious very early on. The book also drags on until it reaches the last 8 chapters, and those last 8 chapters will involve a serious suspension of disbelief on the reader’s part.
Problems with A Flicker in the Dark (Very Minor Spoilers)
1. Author is not from Louisiana that I could find. This is painfully obvious in the book as someone who was born and raised in Louisiana and currently lives in the Baton Rouge metropolitan area. If you are going to use Louisiana as the scene for a brutal serial killer, please do some research and not just mention the names. I found it strange. Most of the places she mentioned in Baton Rouge are not even real places, except for Baton Rouge General and LSU. Maybe there is a reason for that, but it was not very convincing writing every time she mentioned a location. She also mentioned counties and we do not have counties here; we have parishes. It makes the writing appear so lazy; the research not done. I suppose only readers from Louisiana would notice these discrepancies, but it is still bothersome.
2. They convicted her father without any type of evidence except the jewelry that belonged to the girls found in his wife’s jewelry box? There was nothing else? No bodies? The defense attorney got him a plea deal to keep him from the death penalty with no other evidence? That seems very outlandish that a crime with such limited evidence would warrant the death penalty.
3. Chloe prescribing drugs under her fiancé’s name is highly unethical, but the pharmacy would do more than ask a name and date of birth. In Louisiana, you must show an ID and usually sign, especially for a controlled substance like Xanax and Valium. I have worked in pharmacy for 10+ years so this may be a niche complaint, but it is still inaccurate.
4. Her fiancé is a drug rep, but he would not have drug samples of old barbiturates like Valium and Xanax in his suitcase, unless they were new formulations. But there are not new formulations of these types of drugs on the market. Another example of poor research that most people would not notice, but I did.
5. This trope of the drugged-out paranoid woman is so overdone–books, movies, TV shows. The story does not really give a good reason why she started to turn to barbiturates. For such a morose character, the author really does not explore the why behind who Chloe is. I really dislike her character and everything she stands for. None of the characters or their motivations were ever clearly defined now that I think about it.
Problems with A Flicker in the Dark (Very Minor Spoilers)
1. Author is not from Louisiana that I could find. This is painfully obvious in the book as someone who was born and raised in Louisiana and currently lives in the Baton Rouge metropolitan area. If you are going to use Louisiana as the scene for a brutal serial killer, please do some research and not just mention the names. I found it strange. Most of the places she mentioned in Baton Rouge are not even real places, except for Baton Rouge General and LSU. Maybe there is a reason for that, but it was not very convincing writing every time she mentioned a location. She also mentioned counties and we do not have counties here; we have parishes. It makes the writing appear so lazy; the research not done. I suppose only readers from Louisiana would notice these discrepancies, but it is still bothersome.
2. They convicted her father without any type of evidence except the jewelry that belonged to the girls found in his wife’s jewelry box? There was nothing else? No bodies? The defense attorney got him a plea deal to keep him from the death penalty with no other evidence? That seems very outlandish that a crime with such limited evidence would warrant the death penalty.
3. Chloe prescribing drugs under her fiancé’s name is highly unethical, but the pharmacy would do more than ask a name and date of birth. In Louisiana, you must show an ID and usually sign, especially for a controlled substance like Xanax and Valium. I have worked in pharmacy for 10+ years so this may be a niche complaint, but it is still inaccurate.
4. Her fiancé is a drug rep, but he would not have drug samples of old barbiturates like Valium and Xanax in his suitcase, unless they were new formulations. But there are not new formulations of these types of drugs on the market. Another example of poor research that most people would not notice, but I did.
5. This trope of the drugged-out paranoid woman is so overdone–books, movies, TV shows. The story does not really give a good reason why she started to turn to barbiturates. For such a morose character, the author really does not explore the why behind who Chloe is. I really dislike her character and everything she stands for. None of the characters or their motivations were ever clearly defined now that I think about it.