I've read the previous reviews and agree with all of them. Dark. Possibly hard to believe. Unlikeable characters. All valid. I can only say that I listened to this as an audiobook. The voices enhanced the spellbinding quality of a professional roving storyteller like Jim. It was a horrible story. I could not stop listening. I had to find out what happened. Perhaps the fact that the characters weren't very likeable made it easier in the end. There are horrible Jims in the world who fascinate, entrance, enslave, abuse. This is how they do it. A warning if you will. I highly recommend the audio version. ( )

Interesting story with intriguing mystery but some parts were rambling which made me lose the plot.
The end was a long time coming. This could have been a shorter story. ( )

First off, let me say I listened to the audio book, and the excellent narration was part of the pleasure of this book for me. I was also pulled in by the story, a mystery/horror hybrid built around a charismatic and murderous shanachie (Irish storyteller). The story opens with the discovery of the murder of two sisters by their demented aunt. Postman and budding cartoonist Niall finds the diaries of the dead sisters and becomes obsessed with their stories of the villainous shanachie, Jim Quick.

I am seldom interested in folklore and fairy tales but Jim Quick's central tale of a wolf man was intriguing, and the whole story was dark and sometimes erotic in a twisted way. There is a big, big, suspension of disbelief needed in the matter of the diaries - these women were great writers considering that they were being starved and poisoned by a crazy lady. But that's often how diaries go in novels. ( )

Niall is a postman who would rather be drawing for graphic novels or comic books. He has a talent for drawing, but he cannot capture on paper the mystique of the wolf's face that he can see in his mind's eye. He is not the favorite of his boss's, but then who is. On the day he is fired, he finds a diary in the 'dead letter box' and decides to keep it. And as they write in the blurbs on the backs of the books, his life changes forever. Niall gets to narrate the final chapters, so to speak.

Fiona Walsh tells most of her story, and that of her sisters and Jim, through her diary. The Walsh sisters are fiercely loyal to each other, but then Jim, a seanchaí, a drifting Irish storyteller comes to town. He spins tales to audiences for money at various pubs while his helper stays in the shadows. He pulls in his audience by weaving mystery, folklore and the images of wolves into one entrancing tale after another, but he doesn't have to work at all to attract women.

That about tells it - sisters, one mysterious and irresistible man - there's bound to be trouble. Now, add in the lonely aunt. The question is, what happened between the time Jim showed up and the corpses were found by the mailman?

A fun read. Delicious twists and turns. Dark and mysterious. You can try it on for size by reading an excerpt of "Darling Jim" at the book's website. http://us.macmillan.com/excerpt?isbn=9780805092080 ( )

Beginning with the death of three of the main characters this book grabs you from the get go. The reader travels down a winding path with Niall - dusgruntled postal worker, frustrated comic book artist and somewhat unwilling amateur slueth - to discover why these deaths occurred. Jim is a "travelling story teller" and a "travelling ladies man" who weaves a wonderful legend into the plot of the book. Good read !!!
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