ISBN-13: 9780307341556
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group, 254pp
Pub. Date: July 2007

Camille Preaker had a troubled past and a history of self-mutilation, but she had put that behind her and gets on with her life working as a reporter for a second-rate Chicago newspapers. Everything seems normal but bland for her until her editor, Frank Curry hands her an assignment at her old hometown, Wind Gap whereby two young girls were murdered. But she has her qualms as she has not returned in eight years but Frank wants her to cover the story, thinking this would help in boosting the readership as well.

She meets up her estranged neurotic mother and a half-sister she barely knows yet intrigues her. In a way, she is grateful that her mother had let her stay at her house, although it is an icy welcome. She interviews the victims' families but couldn't get any clues from them, and the hometown police didn't offer any much help either. So she snoops around but as she digs deeper into the story and the case, she can't help feelling she is reliving her childhood trauma again, and the scariest thing is things aren't what they appear to be.

Sharp Objects is a page-turner, both intriguing and thrilling. Gillian Flynn's sharp writing style has hooked me starting with her great opening line and it continues to keep my attention till the last chapter and she doesn't reveals the murderer until towards the ending. Although I have somehow guessed who the murderer was, the truth behind it still blown me away.

Gillian Flynn has written a great debut with this book. It is no wonder this is a winner of the CWA New Blood Fiction Dagger; and Stephen King also quoted this 'A terrific debut, relentlessly creepy' on the cover as shown on the right.