Review: Things We Do in the Dark

Things We Do in the Dark by Jennifer Hillier
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received a free advance copy from NetGalley for review.

A wealthy actor/comedian named Jimmy Peralta is found dead in his bathroom. His much younger wife, Paris, is found by police standing beside the bathtub, and she’s covered in blood with a straight razor in her hand.

You wouldn’t think it would take Sherlock Holmes to solve this one.

However, there’s a lot more to the story than it would seem at first glance, and Paris has more problems then just a murder charge to worry about. She’s a woman with secrets, and the publicity surrounding the celebrity death may expose them. Meanwhile, a true crime podcaster is digging into the story of a notorious murderer dubbed the Ice Queen who is about to be released from prison, and his investigation is very personal.

This is the third Jennifer Hillier novel I’ve read, and like her others, I enjoyed it quite a bit. She has a real knack for coming up with plots that seem like they could be Lifetime movies, but she’s got the ability to ground them with enough realism and emotion to keep them from seeming silly. Hillier also doesn’t shy away from including some genuinely nasty edges in the work, and that also gives her books more weight than a similar story might have in lesser hands. She’s also good at distracting a reader by dangling an obvious twist but then revealing it early while keeping the bigger surprises hidden for later.

It's another dark and tangled story from a woman who really knows how to write ‘em.

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