Were you a fan of SJ Watson’s Before I Go To Sleep last year? If you were then you might want to try Elizabeth Haynes, Into the Darkest Corner.
The reader’s first introduction to the main character Catherine comes via a court transcript where she is portrayed as neurotic, jealous, and violent towards her boyfriend. We are then taken to a murder scene that happened four years before. What is the connection is the question going through my head – a question for which the answer will not appear until the end of the book.
The next time we meet Catherine its 2007, two years after the court case, and she appears to still be battling her problems – this time obsessive compulsive disorder. We travel back to 2003, and it’s a very different Catherine that we meet this time, one that is fun loving, drinking and partying to excess. How can these two pictures of the same person be so totally different. The 2003 Catherine meets wildly attractive and charismatic man, Lee, and is the envy of all her friends. It becomes apparent that by 2007, much has changed for Catherine – she is paranoid about security and suspicious of the man who moves into the flat upstairs who is trying to be friendly. Lee is no longer on the scene.
What has happened in those four years? The events that led up to Catherine’s current behaviour are told in flashback and as the book progresses my heart begins to pound and the suspense builds, making me turn the pages well into the night unable to put the book down. It’s not only the past that is so gripping but the story of Catherine’s current existence. Strange things start happening and Catherine’s sense of safety is threatened or is she just imagining it. To find out more, you’ll have to read the book!