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Mar 23, 2009

Allison rated it:

Like his con artist storyteller, Jim Quick, Christian Moerk weaves a Gothic tale of suspense that draws its audience in, compelling us to find out how it all ends. The structure is intricate, but adds to the mood. The book opens with mail carrier Desmond finding the body of an old woman on his route. When the police investigate, they find not only the body of Moira, but the bodies of two young women who were apparently her prisoners. Further investigation reveals that the girls were Moira's niec More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Mar 16, 2009

Lauren rated it:

I am torn on this review. Darling Jim was an enjoyable read with interesting characters, a fast-faced plot, and rich description. However, some parts were very unrealistic and this distracted me. When a story is related through something such as a character's letter, the story should not shift between present and past tense or go into lengthy detail about events that happened years ago. No one can recall every detail of an incident that played out over a few weeks years ago, no matter how signif More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Apr 10, 2011

Karol rated it:

Darling Jim is a mysterious biker who charms women with his penetrating stare and his hypnotic storytelling, effortlessly luring the young Fiona Walsh away from her boyfriend only to choose Fiona's forty-something aunt instead. He quickly moves into the aunt's boarding house, while Fiona becomes obsessed with Jim who arrives just as women begin to turn up dead. He seems untouchable, as the seductive storyteller at the local pub, but Fiona keeps a diary about the dangerous stranger and mails it t More...

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 30, 2008

Sandie rated it:

This modern Gothic novel will grab you and whisk you away on a reading adventure you will not soon forget. The author of DARLING JIM presents his readers with an elaborate and sumptuous tale, some finely tuned dialogue, a tightly crafted plot plus some memorable and engaging characters.

The story begins with a bang as an inquisitive Dublin mailman discovers the bodies of three females at a home along his route.
Who are these women and how did the meet their untimely end? Author More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 19, 2009

Heather rated it:

Darling Jim, the intense new thriller from Christian Moerk, opens with a mystery: On his daily rounds, a mailman discovers the body of a woman, dead in her home. When the police arrive, they discover much more: There are 2 more dead bodies hidden in rooms behind locked doors. The bodies come to be identified as those of Moira Hegarty and her two young nieces, Fiona and Roisin Walsh. As the story behind these brutal murders deepens, Fiona's diary is discovered by cartoonist and postal sorter Nial More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 12, 2011

Paula rated it:

Darling Jim é uma narrativa que conta com vários géneros, são eles, o policial, o histórico e o fantástico. No seu início, a linguagem é simples e cheia de suspense, logo nas primeiras páginas prende o leitor pela curiosidade em volta das acções cheias de mistério.
Christian Mørk, descreve com mestria todo um cenário onde foi cometido um horrível crime em contraste com uma sociedade aparentemente pacífica e pacata. Tendo estes acontecimentos como pano de fundo, o leitor prossegue para as lin More...

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Oct 30, 2011

Allison rated it:

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Mar 10, 2011

sabisteb rated it:

Eigentlich erzählt dieses Buch nur eine Geschichte sondern 4 ineinander verwobene Geschichten, die sich gegenseitig ergänzen. Da ist die Geschichte des Briefträgers Desmond, der 3 Leichen findet und so zum geächteten in seinem Dorf wird. Die Geschichte von Niall, der verarmte Künster, der als Postbeamter arbeitet und auf seiner Suche nach der Inspiration für eine graphische Novelle (Comic) über Fiona Walsh Tagebuch stolpert. Fiona Walshs Geschichte über ihre Liebe zu Jim und wie diese sie und ih More...

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Jul 03, 2010

Janet rated it:

The book starts with the ending - this is not something I usually like and I wasn't sure I would keep reading. But I did, and I found that I really wanted (and needed) to know the circumstances that brought us to the ending. The story takes place in a small Irish town. The main characters are 3 sisters, the aunt who raised them, and Darling Jim who wanders the country as a seanchai (story teller). Most of the story is told through the diaries written by two of the sisters after meeting Jim a More...

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Oct 13, 2009

Laura rated it:

I picked up Darling Jim at the library this afternoon and just "finished" it, which in this case means I stopped really reading it early on and just skimmed through the rest to see if it could be that bad all the way through. It was. Now I feel like my brain needs a breath mint.

A handsome, sexy drifter rides his bright red antique motorcycle into a sleepy Irish town. Think Paul Newman in Long Hot Summer but on a bike - although in this case instead of being a blue-eyed blon More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 30, 2009

Tony rated it:

Moerk, Christian. DARLING JIM. (2009). **. Two young women, sisters, are found dead, along with their aunt, in her home in suburban Dublin. The sisters had been locked in rooms and tortured, starved and poisoned. The aunt had been battered to death. It seemed as if the secret of their bizarre relationship would never be discovered, until Niall, the local postman, discovers the diary of one of the young women in the dead letter box at his post office. This diary, written by Fiona, one of More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 22, 2009

Colleen rated it:

In this story within a story, postman Niall finds the diary of a young woman at the center of a murder mystery, and begins to reconstruct the torrid tale behind the murder house and a series of missing women in the west of Ireland. As we learn more about the three Walsh sisters, their Aunt Moira, and the diabolical itinerant storyteller Darling Jim, a brooding sense of foreboding develops that sets the tone for the entire novel.

Between the story within a story within a story format, More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 05, 2009

Nancy rated it:

Debut novelist Christian Moerk has written a fascinating tale of three sisters, their deranged aunt, and the lethal charmer who ensnares them all. Darling Jim will hold you in its grip until the satisfying conclusion. Suspense, love, and murder: this story offers you all three on a plate along with a pint of Guinness. The Irish setting adds to the mystique when the narrative jumps between sisters and to the postman who finds their diaries after their tragic deaths. How did they die? Why did More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 17, 2010

Renee rated it:

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Jun 27, 2010

Heather rated it:

I've read a lot of serial killer themed mysteries-I mean, A LOT! For a while there it felt like all I ever read was mysteries and thrillers, so my serial killer quotient was pretty high. But I have never come across a mystery quite like Christian Moerk's Darling Jim.

Darling Jim a multi-layered story of deception, obsession, and madness. Two sisters and their aunt are found dead in a house in rural Ireland. The townspeople are shocked to discover that the aunt had been holding h More...

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Oct 10, 2009

Charlie rated it:

Pros:

A dark tale told successfully from a feminine point of view by a male author. It is a story within a story within a story. The perspective does change, but the author makes transitions easy to follow and does it seamlessly without creating any disjointed jolt in time. It held my interest all the way through and I thought all the characters were fully developed and engaging.

Cons:

Although this was a story within a story within a story, I would have l More...

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Aug 17, 2009

Cayleigh rated it:

This book starts out with a mailman finding the bodies of two sisters and their aunt in the aunt’s house, with the knowledge that a third sister seems to have escaped. The aunt was keeping them captive and starving them as punishment. The book follows along the story as told by each of the sisters through diaries that a young mailman finds at the postoffice. The central conflict follows after one sister falls in love with a wandering storyteller but he then marries the aunt. It follows that the More...

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Feb 01, 2009

Sharon rated it:

Danish author Christian Moerk has done something that I, honestly, would have wagered against: created a brilliant modern gothic novel that combines the best of suspense and the ancient Irish art of the seanchai, or storyteller.

With his semi-epistolary novel "Darling Jim," Moerk introduces us to Jim Quick, a charismatic storyteller, and three of the women whom he seduces (two sisters and their aunt). The sisters' two posthumous diaries are found by a local postman, and it i More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 09, 2010

Laura rated it:

Why couldn't I love this book? It had such enticing reviews. I kept waiting for it to happen. I read far into the night, which is risky for me, considering I was promised “a chilling bedtime story for adults” by “an astonishingly gifted storyteller”. I will say that I do think Christian Moderk got the rhythm of the Irish language right, which is pretty good for a guy raised in Denmark, and schooled in New York. He writes witty conversation , as befitting a former movie executive. And the More...

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Nov 30, 2010

Doreen rated it:

Three dead women are found by the postman in a house at the end of a lane, in a small town just outside Dublin. One woman died from having her head bashed in, presumably by the shovel found upstairs, next to the emaciated bodies of her two nieces who had been imprisoned, fed rat poison, and slowly starved to death. Shortly after the grisly discovery, Niall, an aspiring graphic artist who works at the post office, finds an unclaimed package in the dead letter bin, mailed by Fiona Walsh (one of th More...

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May 07, 2010

Collin Shea rated it:

I was very interested to read this book written by a Danish-born and raised author who has spent the last 20+ years living in the U.S.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the book had what I thought was an authentically Irish feel - traveling story-tellers, a sense of the mysterious and very mystical, and fairytales. Not just any fairytales, but scary fairytales that evolve from real-life, as well as real-life unknowingly mimicking fairytales.

The sense that there i More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 23, 2009

Lisa rated it:

I received the book as an advanced reader copy through Library Thing and had requested it because it looked like something I would enjoy.

The book begins when it is discovered that a woman has been murdered in her home in the town of Malahide, but the mystery thickens as her two emaciated nieces are found upstairs. Later a bored postal clerk finds the diary of one of the girls in the dead letter box and sets out by himself to solve the mystery of the girl’s death and trace the footste More...

1 comment like

Oct 17, 2009

Liza rated it:

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Mar 17, 2009

Kate rated it:

Darling Jim was a perfect read just before St. Patrick's Day, just by happy circumstance.

This is an engaging, romantic tale with healthy dollops of gothic fun and Irish superstition on top. Most of the action is credible, although I had to will myself stubbornly to continue my suspension of disbelief in several parts. Most difficult to believe were the bits about how instantly "darling Jim" put our main characters under his spell. The text veered dangerously into what I' More...

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Apr 10, 2009

Doug rated it:

This is a work of crime fiction. Fiona and her sister are found wearing shackles and starved to death in a cottage in Ireland, while their aunt lays on the floor downstairs having been hit with a shovel. The story unfolds from there, as a mail carrier finds Fiona's journal and she takes you back in time to tell you the story of an Irish Rogue storyteller named Jim who enters there lives to only cause mayhem and pain, and it goes from there. You get the story of Fiona and her sister but als More...

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Dec 02, 2011

Nicole rated it:

Begins with the discovery of a grisly death scene--two sisters imprisoned, starved and poisoned by their lunatic aunt, who suffered a stroke following a desperate attack by the girls. Niall, a postal worker, finds a diary in the dead-letter box at the post office and begins to discover the story of "Darling Jim," a devastatingly charismatic serial killer who seduces the eldest sister, rapes the youngest (the only sister to survive, and the one who mailed the others' diaries), and propo More...

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Dec 08, 2009

Amy rated it:

I'd probably give this 5 stars if I didn't personally reserve that rating for books that move me on some deeper level. This was an absolutely riveting storyline, and it was very hard to put down. There are really three storylines interwoven--the story of a set of murders and how they came about, the story of the man who (sort of) solves them, and the folktale story told by Darling Jim, one of the main characters (can't say too much about him without revealing too much). SO we move between modern More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 19, 2009

Jennifer rated it:

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1 comment like

Jun 08, 2009

Linda rated it:

For centuries, storytellers have crisscrossed Ireland, weaving spells in the homes and pubs of towns and villages in return for room, board, and a little money. A few of these bards still remain in this age of instantaneous communication, and when a handsome young beguiler blows into quiet Castletownbere on his vintage motorcycle, the entire town, especially its women, falls subject to his charms.

Author Moerk imbues his tale with malevolent fairy tale and mythic elements, weaving a s More...

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Nov 28, 2009

Monica rated it:

I read many reviews that described this book as a "modern gothic novel"...and that's exactly what it was. Moerk weaves a fairytale within a tale of murder and places them both inside another story where Niall, the graphic artist, makes it his mission to find the answers to why three women were found dead in a house in Ireland.

I at first thought the ending of this book might lose me...but it managed to hold on and pull everything together for me. I really liked the three y More...

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