Night By Night by Jack Jordan

          2.5 Stars

Okay, that's it I am officially done.  This is the third Jack Jordan book I have read and I have the same issues with this one as I did with the previous novels - I can suspend belief when reading but not to this extent.  Everything appears intended to shock and stun the reader and decisions made by the characters are just stultifyingly dumb to achieve this end.  Honestly, I thought this one may have been an improvement on his previous works as it started off so promisingly and then, well, it was more of the same.  That's it, I am not going to do this to myself anymore I officially give up on this author.

Rose Shaw is an insomniac, has been ever since she had her twin daughters.  The descriptions of how the insomnia affects her are heartbreaking and really cut to the quick.  So far, so good.  We then have a detailed look at one day in her life which leads to an unspeakable tragedy.  At this point all my sympathies were with Rose, not only because of the "incident" but because of her condition and how judgmental everyone around her seemed to be.

We then jump on 4(?) years and Rose is still living with her husband and teenager but is singularly estranged from them.  Somehow she seems to be existing in a hermit-like bubble whilst in the same house and she very firmly lumps all the blame on them.  Fair enough, the insomnia is still raging and the "incident" looms large in all their lives so I can forgive this as being a symptom of major trauma.  Things then begin to get a wee bit odd when she comes in to possession of the journal - being a normal person she cannot help but peek (again, with you all the way).  It's when she decides that, after reading, the journal she is going to search for Finn Matthews that I began to feel the threads unravelling.  I get the parallels with her brother's suicide but honestly? really?

Things then ramp up with the local police force being full of homophobic bullies who go on to target Rose because she won't let it drop.  Chuck in a therapist who is painted as being sinister.  An ex-policeman who adds to Rose's paranoia by telling her the whole force is corrupt (not just one or two of it's members but the entire station if not the whole institution).  A strange interlude at a shooting range.  As Rose's husband and former Best Friend accuse her of paranoia and needing to see a professional I did find myself hoping that they were right and that we weren't really expected to believe that Rose was right - sadly we are expected to believe that she is right and everyone else (apart from the ex-policeman) is blinkered and wrong.

As we approach the denouement it just gets more and more bizarre and end sup having more in common with a Richard Laymon novel than a thriller.  Honestly, remote farmhouse, thunderstorms and shallow graves.  There were also issues with Rose's leg injury vanishing when it suited the story and then reappearing to ratchet up tension.  The only tension I felt was in the tendons of my neck from shaking my head in disbelief.

There is no subtlety here, everything is broad strokes and either black or white (frequently gore doused).  I am not naive and know that there are issues within the Police Force as a whole but the mocking tone used throughout for this institution really set my teeth on edge.  Couple that with Rose herself who starts off as a sympathetic character but one who I soon became heartily frustrated with - she does not appear to even try to help herself or be able to see anyone's point of view but her own.

In short, best left alone.

THIS IS AN HONEST AND UNBIASED REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED VIA THE PIGEONHOLE.