Product Description

A modern gothic novel of suspense that reveals, through their diaries, the story of sisters who fall in love with a beguiling stranger, and of the town that turns a blind eye to his murderous ways

When two sisters and their aunt are found dead in their suburban Dublin home, it seems that the secret behind their untimely demise will never be known. But then Niall, a young mailman, finds a mysterious diary in the post office’s dead-letter bin. From beyond the grave, Fiona Walsh shares the most tragic love story he’s ever heard—and her tale has only just begun.

Niall soon becomes enveloped by the mystery surrounding itinerant storyteller Jim, who traveled through Ireland enrapturing audiences and wooing women with his macabre mythic narratives. Captivated by Jim, townspeople across Ireland thought it must be a sad coincidence that horrific murders trailed him wherever he went—and they failed to connect that the young female victims, who were smitten by the newest bad boy in town, bore an all too frightening similarity to the victims in Jim’s own fictional plots.

The Walsh sisters, fiercely loyal to one another, were not immune to “darling” Jim’s powers of seduction, but found themselves in harm’s way when they began to uncover his treacherous past. Niall must now continue his dangerous hunt for the truth—and for the vanished third sister—while there’s still time. And in the woods, the wolves from Jim’s stories begin to gather.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25646 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-31
• Released on: 2009-03-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780805089479
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Like the itinerant Irish storyteller at the crux of this riveting novel, Danish-born author Moerk mixes mythology, Arthurian legend, fairy tales, noir and horror in his American debut. When reclusive Moira Hegarty and her two nieces, Fiona and Róisín Walsh, are found dead in Moira's secluded home in a Dublin suburb, evidence suggests the sisters were imprisoned for months by their aunt, along with a third person, perhaps Róisín's twin sister. The young women left behind two diaries, one of which a postal clerk finds. Three years before, they fell under the spell of Jim Quick, a séanachai (or bard), whose tales of wolves and kings gave him rock star status in the sleepy town of Castletownbere. Only the Walsh sisters appear to have seen beyond the charm of darling Jim, whose presence coincides with several women's murders. Moerk tightly meshes each separate plot strand—the murders, the diaries and Quick's tales—into an enthralling story that never falters. Author tour. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Daniel Mallory "Accursed who brings to light of day / The writings I have cast away!" So warned Yeats in 1908. A century later, those dusty words are lost on Dublin postman Niall Cleary, as he retrieves from the dead-letter bin a bulging envelope addressed to "Anyone at all." The signatory: Fiona Walsh, whose ravaged corpse was recently discovered in a prim suburban house alongside the bodies of her sister and aunt -- victims, it seems, of a triple homicide. Fiona's handwriting, ragged and wrought, hurtles across pages stained with blood: "My time is short," she vows. "We'll die in this house because we loved a man named Jim." And so Niall sinks into his chair, sure "he wouldn't move until he'd reach the last page." Neither will the reader of "Darling Jim," the spellbinding new novel from Danish-born, Brooklyn-based Christian Moerk. Aglow with fairy-tale inflections, this hypnotic, neo-Gothic suspense story unfolds like a hothouse bloom, lush and pungent; it's a sprig of nightshade, all petals and poison. And it heralds the arrival of an astonishingly gifted storyteller. Itinerant bard Jim, the lithe, sloe-eyed Casanova prowling the murky margins of Moerk's tale, has blown into coastal Castletownbere astride a comet-red vintage motorbike. By day, he entrances the Walsh women -- first Fiona, then her sisters Aoife and Róisín, and finally their shy maiden-aunt, Moira. At night, he unspools folklore in the village pubs: sinister legends of Celtic princes and deathless wolves, wracked castles and doomed love. "In whatever time I may have left," remembers Fiona, "I'll always recall the hush that preceded Jim's story that night. For, in a sense, it was the last moment of peace the three of us would know." Darling Jim Quick, of course, is not what he appears. As the Walsh sisters exhume his murderous past, he romances the besotted Moira; meanwhile, Fiona's diary leads Niall to Castletownbere, where another journal completes the story. Two diaries, then, alongside a clutch of spinsters, virgins and villains, all ranged across an Ireland of foamy bays and transistor radios, midnight forests and punk musicians. Time slips and blurs in "Darling Jim," which fixes its events "not so long ago," and Moerk tweaks the creaky conventions of Gaelic myth even as he honors them: Niall makes a noble if hapless knight-errant; ghostly voices in the CB ether inform and advise the Walsh girls; a crippled prince of legend returns as an aristocrat in a wheelchair. Sly, wry and utterly original, "Darling Jim" is the stuff of alchemy, missing only the perfect epigraph: "Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams; / Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round."
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

From Booklist
It’s tough enough to make a story within a story work, let alone a story within a story within a story. But Moerk manages nicely in his first novel, which opens with gruesome death. An affable mail carrier in a small Irish village grows uneasy enough about the occupant of one of the houses on his route to venture inside. His discovery of the dead home owner is only the beginning; when garda officers arrive, they find the corpses of two emaciated young women, obviously held captive in the home. The circumstances surrounding the tragedy remain a mystery—until another postman, a particularly curious one, discovers a diary written by one of the young women. The horrifying tale that unfolds as he reads introduces him to three (yes, three) very different sisters, their vulnerable aunt, and a charismatic, itinerate seanchaí, Darling Jim, whose darkly compelling stories of  brothers, wolves, a princess, and a transformation turn out to be less fantastical than they appear. Bringing together elements of love, lust, murder, betrayal, madness, and secrets, Moerk does some irresistible storytelling of his own. --Stephanie Zvirin

Customer Reviews

A Story within a Story
Moerk, Christian. "Darling Jim: A Novel", Henry Holt, 2009.

A Story within a Story

Amos Lassen

I love a good gothic suspenseful novel and "Darling Jim" is just that. Told through the diary of Fiona Walsh, it is the story of a stranger and a town that does not see him for who he is. The stranger is mysterious and manages to beguile the townspeople. When two of the sisters and their aunt are found dead in their home in a suburb of Dublin, people feel that they will never know what caused their deaths. Niall, a young man who works for the post office, found a diary in the dead letter bin and in it Fiona Walsh gives the details of one of the saddest love stories that Niall has ever heard. But this is just the beginning.
Jim, an itinerant story teller, travels across Ireland and with him travel stories of horrific murders. Townspeople who hear his stories are captivated but they also felt that there must be some kind of coincidence that the murders seem to follow him and that young women all over Ireland are taken in by Jim's captivating personality. Interestingly enough is that the women who have died are strangely similar to the women in Jim's stories. The sisters Walsh who were best friends and totally loyal to each other were among those sucked into Jim's mysterious ways and awesome seductive powers. They suddenly realized that they were in danger when they began to learn of his past. Niall decides to hunt for the truth and for the third Walsh sister before she ends up like the other two. But whether he can do this is yet to be seen.
This is a page turner that keeps you guessing and every time you think you have things figured out there is yet another twist. The originality of the plot keeps you guessing and the prose is beautiful to read. The story of the three sisters captures the imagination and a wonderful tale is woven from them. Moerk manages to bring together Irish folklore and modern society. "Darling Jim" pays homage to the great storytellers as it spins its own wonderful story.

Five stars are not enough
A handsome stranger on a red motorcycle comes to a small Irish town. As he travels from pub to pub telling tales of wolves and betrayal, the townspeople become enraptured with him and women are vying to become the one with whom he chooses to spend the night. One family in particular, three sisters and their aunt, are torn apart as "Darling Jim" tries to wheedle his way into the family. We learn the whole story as a postman reads the sisters' diaries and goes on a mission to discover what really happened.

This is the best book I've read in ages. Deliciously creepy without going over the top, lots of mystery, a bit of fairy tale, passion, great writing, surprising and perfect ending--absolutely everything you'd want in a book. If I could have, I would have given this 10 stars!

Great beginning, but slides quickly downwards
I'm going to have to part company with the rest of the reviewers on this one. While the author has an interesting voice alternating between the richly dark and the cleverly sardonic and the story concept is interesting, the execution was ultimately unsatisfying.

The beginning was compelling and remains the best part of the book. The emaciated and devastated bodies of two young women and their aunt are found in an unassuming Dublin home, under circumstances so shocking it makes the reader cringe but at the same time overwhelmed by curiosity. It's a near-flawless bit of foreshadowing that definitely set the mood - or would have.

The story then unfolds mostly via a journal written by one of the dead girls, and that's where it began to lose me. It never did recapture the feel of the well-done beginning, for me. I didn't care for the tone of the narrator Fiona, for one. It felt much too contrived. I didn't like any of the sisters, who all seemed rather directionless and dull. Most of all I thought the title character, the unbelievably (literally) handsome hottie around whom this story revolves, utterly banal. I couldn't help but think that the author (a man) had made the common mistake of many authors and decided to insert a secret fantasy version of himself into his writing. Maybe that's unfair, but that's just how it struck me. I couldn't relate to the way Fiona, Rosie, the aunt and every other female kept swooning over this rather irritating character who tells horrific fairy tale-type stories of torture and revenge. I found him a complete turn-off. I tried to just put that aside and accept the passion Fiona and the other women felt regardless of my own opinion, but I couldn't. I just couldn't relate, I suppose. I'm a woman, but I don't react that way to a man I've never met and I can't imagine doing so. Seduction on that level is cerebral, and it takes a little time - at least for most women. Or maybe that's just me! At any rate I think it was important that Jim be a well-fleshed character, and that was not accomplished by a long shot. He wasn't appealing, sexy, scary, or even interesting, and I found myself constantly wondering why this whole story centered around someone so dull.

I'd give it only one star except that it's obvious the author has talent. I'd like to see him use it a bit more creatively.