She Treads Softly: Things We Do in the Dark

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Things We Do in the Dark

Things We Do in the Dark by Jennifer Hillier
7/19/22; 352 pages
St. Martin's Press

Things We Do in the Dark by Jennifer Hillier is a very highly recommended psychological thriller.

Paris Peralta is arrested for killing her celebrity husband. She is found holding a straight razor while her husband Jimmy Peralta is lying dead in the bathtub. Paris swears she didn't kill Jimmy, but she does have secrets in her past that she does want to hide. All the publicity from the murder accusation may bring to light Paris's past and secrets that she does want to hide, including another murder and her mother, convicted killer Ruby Reyes.

Investigative Journalist Drew Malcolm is planning a pod cast featuring notorious killer Ruby Reyes, aka the Ice Queen, is about to be freed on parole after serving 25 years of a life sentence. Drew was good friends with her daughter, Joey, who later died mysteriously in a fire. Drew wants to highlight the abuse Joey received at the hands of Ruby, redirecting media attention away from Ruby.

The well written, complex and intricate plot of Things We Do in the Dark is compelling and full of surprises and heartbreak. It is also an un-put-downable psychological thriller. This complicated web of relationships, deceit, and lies is told through flashbacks and the perspectives of different characters. The timeline also moves back and forth between the past and the present and includes a couple big surprising twists in the plot. What is uncovered is Paris's relationship in the present with Jimmy, but also all her relationships in the past as she was growing up in Canada.

As a character driven drama Things We Do in the Dark excels. All the characters are portrayed as real people, protagonists and antagonists. There are characters you will support and commiserate with and there are characters you will actively despise. Paris is an intriguing and sympathetic character. You know she couldn't be responsible for Jimmy's murder. Journalist Drew Malcolm is also a character you will trust.

This is really an enjoyable thriller. At times the plot does stretch credibility, but you will be too engrossed and emotionally invested in the plot to care. Since Things We Do in the Dark is my first Hillier novel, it is impressive enough that I'm now planning to look at some of her previous novels. 4.5 rounded up

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of St. Martin's Press via NetGalley.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.