Good, but not his best.

books:


	• Nightlife: A Novel Thomas Perry Ballantine Books, 2007 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 39 reviews view larger image
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Good, but not his best.

As a fan of Thomas Perry's, I was a bit disappointed in this book. He does his usual wonderful job of creating settings and bringing action to life. Each scene is carefully crafted, and many are full of the kind of suspense at which he so often excels. The premise of the book is compelling and it has one of the best beginnings he's written.

So why three stars? Perry is a master at describing settings, creating unlikely but richly defined characters, and, most of all, fascinating pursuits with a stream of identity changes mixed in. In Nightlife, this combination of skills never really gels into a tight story.

1. The ending is frightfully predictable. Long before the final clash, you can see it coming; and, when it does it's abrupt and uninteresting.

2. The romance is superfluous. It adds nothing substantive to either the plot, or our understanding of Catherine Hobbes, the heroine of the story.

3. The events are episodes that are somewhat loosely connected. The continuity of the pursuit that fuels his best works such as Butcher's Boy and the early Jane Whitfield books is missing.

Read this one at the beach or while on an airplane. It's Perry after all, and still worth the time.

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nightlife

The twists and turns in this book keeps you on the edge of your seat. I found myself enjoying an evil serial killer way too much. I highly recommend this book.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Thomas Perry?s novels of suspense have been celebrated for their ?dazzling ingenuity? (The New York Times Book Review) and for writing that is ?as sharp as a sushi knife? (Los Angeles Times). By turns horrifying and erotic, Perry?s new thriller takes us on a dangerous cat-and-mouse game that pits two women against each other: a beautiful serial killer and the detective who is determined to stop her.

When the cousin of Los Angeles underworld figure Hugo Poole is found shot to death in his Portland, Oregon, home, police find nothing at the scene of the crime except several long strands of blond hair hinting that a second victim may have been involved. Hotel security tapes from the victim?s last vacation reveal an out-of-focus picture of a young blond woman entering and leaving his room. Could she also be a murder victim?

Portland homicide detective Catherine Hobbes is determined to solve the case and locate the missing blonde, but her feelings, and the investigation, are complicated when Hugo hires private detective Joe Pitt to perform a parallel investigation. As the Joe and Catherine form an uneasy alliance, the murder count rises?and both realize that the pretty young woman in the security tapes is not a victim at all.

As Catherine follows the evidence, she finds herself in a deadly contest with an unpredictable adversary capable of changing her appearance and identity at will. Catherine must use everything she knows, as a homicide detective and as a woman, to stop a murderer who kills on impulse and with ease, and who becomes more efficient and elusive with each crime.

From the Hardcover edition.

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