Book Review: Darling Jim

Christian Moerk's Darling Jim is just what the doctor ordered for the winter blahs: a dark, 300-page thriller that regrettably lasts only about 48 hours, since you can't put down this dreadful, compulsively-readable tale.

This is an extremely well-written gothic nightmare with three fascinating young sisters at the heart of it, Fiona and the twins, Roisin and Aoife. Trouble is, two of them are already dead, found horribly murdered in the first chapter. Fortunately they both wrote diaries right up to their grisly ends. Hence the novel is literally tales from beyond the grave, and the story-within-a-story-within-a-story all dovetail together quite nicely.

This successful Danish novel, translated by the author, opens with poor Desmond, the postman, going crazy from what has just been found in the house at 1 Strand Street in a little town called Malahide, just north of Dublin. Moira Hegarty has been whacked to death with a shovel, her niece Fiona has been stabbed 19 times, apparently by her aunt, and along with her younger sister has been slowly poisoned and shackled inside the house in rooms with one-way locks.

It's like plunging into a gothic Scandinavian mystery written by Hans Christian Andersen in a really bad mood. Two diaries and a frame story set in a post office provide the narrative structure, while the relentless storytelling employs every known hook and trick to keep us gasping as we circle, with merciless momentum, right back to the opening scene, the catastrophic, Greek tragedy ending in the Malahide death house.

Getting there is the scary part. You read with anxiety, watching these magnificently alive women move toward their fates, captivated by the dangerous, seductive traveling storyteller, darling Jim, whose appearance in town coincides with the deaths of a number of lovely young women.

A handsome young serial killer, a desperate, murderous aunt who will stop at nothing for revenge, and an ominous voice over the radio airwaves that knows too much, all close in on the pretty Walsh sisters. Will they also destroy Niall, the poor young postal clerk who loses his job on the day he finds Fiona's diary in the dead letter bin, who is risking his life to travel back to that guilty, suspicious town in search of the final pieces of the puzzle? Moerk holds back one of his best surprises till the very end.--Nick DiMartino

Shelf Talker: A modern gothic mystery set in Ireland, Darling Jim is a tragic and compelling tale of three young sisters, an itinerant storyteller, a desperate aunt and a postal clerk in search of the truth.