In the Night Season: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A roller coaster ride of a story!!!
Review: Although I must admit to a bias toward Richard Bausch's work (he was my fiction writing professor in college), I enjoyed In The Night Season. For veteran Bausch readers, it is quite a departure from previous novels, although not an unpleasant one. This novel has plenty of action and a suspenseful storyline however the denouement was predictable. I do appreciate Bausch's efforts to forge into uncharted territory however.

Rating:
Summary: First Rate Suspense
Review: I had read the book of Bausch's short stories and was impressed. However, this novel was absolutely first rate. He manages to hold the tension in the book right up to the epilogue. I love authors who fully develop their characters, and Bausch is a master of that, even in a suspense novel. As a writer I always read with one eye on the craft of the novel.
This was like seeing a movie that had you on the edge of your seat the whole time. I plan to read lots more by this author.

Rating:
Summary: Can't Put It Down--Kept me up ALL NIGHT
Review: I thought this was a great book. As far as mysteries and thrillers go, this one kept me up all night. The characters were realistic and you could keep track of it. It was a great book. I'm looking into other books by Bausch now. I just discovered him after reading Stephen King's book On Writing.

Rating:
Summary: A bi-coastal mystery
Review: The possibilities are all there at the beginning. A young newly-widowed mother, Nora, and her 11-year old son, Jason, are befriended by a neighbor, a black man who offers to check on Jason while Nora works. An element of racism is introduced when both Nora and her neighbor, Edward Bishop, begin receiving hate mail. It would seem that they are being watched. They are. The culprits eventually get to Edward, whom they brutally murder, then move on to the next prey, Jason, home alone. As the men are stalking Jason, I kept thinking, why doesn't he do this or that, but it doesn't matter, because of course they find him and wait for his mother. The story becomes bi-coastal when Nora's parents in Seattle are drawn into the picture. Apparently Nora's dead husband has something to do with all this. After a bloody, facile ending Nora and Jason are rescued as are the grandparents in Seattle. So what did the hate mail have to do with the story? Nothing.

Rating:
Summary: Brings Nothing New to the Genre
Review: This is a very well-written thriller, but it brings nothing new to the genre. I can't complain about the prose, which is full and efficient. I wish Richard Bausch would stick with short stories, or at least stories with gentler and less generic themes.

Rating:
Summary: All Violence, No Character
Review: This reading experience was a dissappointment. While the tight writing keeps the reader's interest, the people do not. Bausch, who is capable of drawing a reader into incredibly complex ethical situations, does none of that here. And, while we can all get at least a little excited about pure mayhem, this unrelieved hostage tale provides no such excitement. No moral tension, because there are no moral people. Just grossly denegrating behavior--homosexual rape of an eleven year old, illicit fingering of his mom, violent deaths---why? No, I cannot recommend this one even though I very much admire the author's ability, in his short fiction, to place the reader in a specific part of the human experiment with stories that haunt.