Gone Girl

by Gillian Flynn, narrated by Julia Whelan and Kirby Heyborne, Random House, 19 hours, 11 minutes, June 2012

...a psychological thriller worth the label

This is a psychological thriller worth the label.  It starts with the disappearance of Amy, wife of Nick, on their fifth wedding anniversary.  There are signs of a struggle and Nick is quickly the prime suspect in her disappearance.  Nick repeatedly proclaims his innocence but lies to the police about a number of key things.  The story is narrated in alternating chapters by Nick and Amy.  Amy gives the back story to their relationship before the disappearance and Nick picks up the story on the day of the disappearance.  The enjoyment in this story is because of the suspense so I won’t give anything resembling a spoiler here.

This novel is very well plotted.  In part one, information about the couple and their relationship is meted out in small doses by each of the characters.  The couple was married in NYC, and after both losing their jobs they relocate to Nick’s boyhood home in Missouri.  Amy though not happy in Missouri supports Nick through his father’s illness and the death of his mother.  Throughout the first part of the story the plot is fairly straightforward and maybe even predictable.  When part two launches things really get kicked up a notch and the suspense intensifies.  Whenever anybody makes a list of unreliable narrators be sure to put these two characters at the top.  One of the things I often enjoy in reading is liking and rooting for one of the characters, these two are hard to like so it has to be the story that entertained for me; this one surely did!

I listened to this story as an audio book.  The narration by Julia Whelan and Kirby Heyborne was excellent.  They were able to bring just the right amount of uncertainty and immorality to these characters.  Despite this fine performance I’d recommend reading this book as I could not get through the story fast enough as an audio production.  The audio was 18 hours long, I am sure I would have read this thriller in 4-5 hours.  Enjoy!