A Flicker in the Dark

by Stacy Willingham

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

The past is never far behind in Stacy Willingham’s A Flicker in the Dark. Willingham delivers in keeping us riveted as one timeline intersects with another.

A New York Times Bestseller

“A smart, edge-of-your-seat story with plot twists you’ll never see coming. Stacy Willingham’s debut will keep you turning pages long past your bedtime.” —Karin Slaughter

When Chloe Davis was twelve, six teenage girls went missing in her small Louisiana town. By the end of the summer, her own father had confessed to the crimes and was put away for life, leaving Chloe and the rest of her family to grapple with the truth and try to move forward while dealing with the aftermath.

Now twenty years later, Chloe is a psychologist in Baton Rouge and getting ready for her wedding. While she finally has a fragile grasp on the happiness she’s worked so hard to achieve, she sometimes feels as out of control of her own life as the troubled teens who are her patients. So when a local teenage girl goes missing, and then another, that terrifying summer comes crashing back. Is she paranoid, seeing parallels from her past that aren't actually there, or for the second time in her life, is Chloe about to unmask a killer?

From debut author Stacy Willingham comes a masterfully done, lyrical thriller, certain to be the launch of an amazing career. A Flicker in the Dark is eerily compelling to the very last page.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250803825
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/11/2022
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	8,438
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

STACY WILLINGHAM worked as a copywriter and brand strategist for various marketing agencies before deciding to write fiction full time. She earned her BA in Magazine Journalism from the University of Georgia and MFA in Writing from the Savannah College of Art & Design. She currently lives in Charleston, SC with her husband, Britt, and Labradoodle, Mako. A Flicker in the Dark is her first novel.

Editorial Reviews

10/18/2021

At 12, Chloe Davis—the protagonist of Willingham’s devastating debut—watched in horror as her father pleaded guilty to murdering six teenage girls from Breaux Bridge, La., and agreed to serve six consecutive life sentences in order to avoid the death penalty. Shortly thereafter, her mother attempted suicide, and her gregarious older brother retreated inside himself. Now, Chloe is a 32-year-old self-medicating Baton Rouge psychologist, whose family history is unknown to nearly everyone but Daniel Briggs, the pharmaceutical salesperson to whom she’s now engaged following a whirlwind romance. Chloe is already apprehensive regarding the impending 20th anniversary of her father’s crime spree, so when a 15-year-old girl disappears from Chloe’s neighborhood, she tries not to panic. A few days later, however, another 15-year-old girl vanishes after leaving Chloe’s office, forcing Chloe to question whether a copycat killer has found her, or her paranoid imagination is seeing patterns where none exist. Willingham skillfully intercuts Chloe’s anxious first-person narration in the present with flashbacks to her childhood, ratcheting up the tension. Atmospheric prose and abundant red herrings amplify the tale’s intensity. Willingham is a writer to watch. Agent: Dan Conaway, Writers House. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for A Flicker in the Dark
Goodreads – One of the Readers’ Most Anticipated Mysteries of 2022
Nerd Daily – One of the Most Anticipated 2022 Book Releases
Crime by the Book – One of the Most Anticipated Crime Books of Early 2022
SIBA – One of the ‘Read This Next!’ Picks of the Month
Deep South Magazine – Fall/Winter Reading Lists

"Exceptionally smart, entertaining.... [Willingham's] denouement is both surprising and plausible." —The Washington Post

"Beautifully written... a must read." —Paste

“Equal parts domestic suspense and hard-edged police procedural. . . Willingham pulls together a tight, involving plot with a solid psychological look at the effects of a horrid crime on the Davises, the victims’ families and the small community. . . The gripping A Flicker in the Dark sets a terrific course for the new year, shining a bright light on a new author to savor in Willingham.” —Oline Cogdill, South Florida Sun Sentinel

“Charleston author Stacy Willingham’s debut novel A Flicker in the Dark is collecting accolades for its lyrical prose and propulsive, deeply creepy story.” —Augusta Chronicle

“A book you won’t want to put down.” —Red Carpet Crash

“A Flicker in the Dark will have you sleeping with the lights on by the time you reach the end. . . Suspense climbs as the pages turn, you won’t be able to put this one down once you pick it up.” —Daily Hive

“A great addition to any mystery/psychological thriller collection, with an unforgettable character haunted by her past in an authentic Louisiana setting, which ups the creep factor.” —Library Journal

“Willingham skillfully intercuts Chloe’s anxious first-person narration in the present with flashbacks to her childhood, ratcheting up the tension. Atmospheric prose and abundant red herrings amplify the tale’s intensity. Willingham is a writer to watch.” —Publishers Weekly

“Willingham offers taut storytelling and a heroine with compelling vulnerability. This is a strong debut recommended for domestic-suspense readers lining up next-reads.” —Booklist

“I have not felt this excited about a thriller in years. I could not put this book down. It's fabulous.” —Chelsea Cain

"Don't trust anyone in this wickedly good debut by Stacy Willingham. A twisty and propulsive thriller." —Peter Swanson

“A Flicker in the Dark is equal parts lush Southern Gothic, penetrating character study, family tragedy wrenching enough to bruise, taut psychological suspense, and—best of all—a mystery as profoundly satisfying as any I've read in years. Evocative and exhilarating.” —A.J. Finn

"A psychological thriller in the truest sense — an engaging, propulsive read, loaded with surprising twists, that genuinely thrills as it gets deep under the skin of its fascinating heroine, Chloe Davis. I tore through this book." —Alison Gaylin

"Haunting, lyrical and utterly compelling! These are just a few of the words of praise one could use to describe A Flicker in the Dark. Author Willingham takes us on an unstoppable journey through the psychology of evil, and of courage (in many senses), all told in a pitch-perfect literary style. Once you start reading, you will not put it down." —Jeffery Deaver

From the Publisher

08/01/2021

When Chloe Davis was 12, her father was convicted of killing six girls who vanished from their small Louisiana town. Now she's a Baton Rouge-based psychologist prepping for her wedding, and it's happening again: local teenage girls are starting to vanish. What's going on? A big debut with a 150,000-copy first printing.

Library Journal

2021-09-15
Twenty years after Chloe Davis’ father was convicted of killing half a dozen young women, someone seems to be celebrating the anniversary by extending the list.

No one in little Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, was left untouched by Richard Davis’ confession, least of all his family members. His wife, Mona, tried to kill herself and has been incapacitated ever since. His son, Cooper, became so suspicious that even now it’s hard for him to accept pharmaceutical salesman Daniel Briggs, whose sister, Sophie, also vanished 20 years ago, as Chloe’s fiance. And Chloe’s own nightmares, which lead her to rebuff New York Times reporter Aaron Jansen, who wants to interview her for an anniversary story, are redoubled when her newest psychiatric patient, Lacey Deckler, follows the path of high school student Aubrey Gravino by disappearing and then turning up dead. The good news is that Dick Davis, whom Chloe has had no contact with ever since he was imprisoned after his confession, obviously didn’t commit these new crimes. The bad news is that someone else did, someone who knows a great deal about the earlier cases, someone who could be very close to Chloe indeed. First-timer Willingham laces her first-person narrative with a stifling sense of victimhood that extends even to the survivors and a series of climactic revelations, at least some of which are guaranteed to surprise the most hard-bitten readers.

The story is sadly familiar, the treatment claustrophobically intense.

Kirkus Reviews