Night Sins

Rating:
Summary: First Half of A Facinating Investigation
Review: Eight year old Josh Kirkwood is abducted outside the hockey arena where he has finished practice. Only one clue is left in the form of a note regarding ignorance and sin. Josh's parents, Dr. Hannah Garrison and Paul Kirkwood are beside themselves. Enter Megan O'Malley, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Investigator and Mitch Holt, Chief of Police for the town of Deer Lake, Minnesota. They set out to investigate Josh's disappearance but don't have much to go on. The kidnapper leaves two more clues in the form of short religiously oriented notes but there still is not much direction. The town responds by setting up search parties and telephone volunteers. But it's not easy. Slowly some suspects come into the picture, yet, they seem to disappear as quickly as they arrive. Tami Hoag does a fine job in building this first of a two part story regarding child abduction and the challenges it presents to law enforcement. While the ending is very hopeful, the reader needs to go on to Guilty As Sin for the full story. Night Sins and Guilty As Sin provide the reader with an excellent story that you can sink your teeth into. It's nice that Hoag didn't choose to simply wrap up a complex story in the last chapter. Further layers unfold in this fascinating story in volume two. Well worth the time and effort.

Rating:
Summary: Not Finishing Your Book isn't innocence but SIN!
Review: This isn't Tami Hoag's greatest novel by a long-shot. I didn't hate it like I did Dust to Dust but I didn't love it like I do Ashes to Ashes or Cry Wolf. One thing I've noticed about Hoag's work is that the mystery AND the romance often take backseat to every characters' sad memories, traumatic life expirences, and sordid pasts. No book quite highlights Hoag's tendency to weave angst and depression into a massive tapestry of despair quite like Night Sins.
In Night Sins, a young boy is abducted after hockey practice. His mother was busy preforming emergency surgery, and his father was busy screwing the neighbor's wife. These two characters spend a lot of time being guilty and angsty. Heading the search for Josh are Megan O'Malley, a female field agent from the BCA with a chip on her shoulders and daddy-issues, and Mitch Holt, a police chief whose very depressed about the death of his wife and son. These two characters also spend a lot of time being guilty and angsty. Who could have done such a thing in the perfect, perfect town of Deer Lake?
I'll get to the book's biggest flaw first. It's ending is very, very poor. Nothing is really resolved. Sure, the kidnapper is caught but we are given no indepth insight into why he did it, but the ending does make it clear that there is one or more accomplices still on the lose. After spending many hours reading over 500 pages I feel cheated. I think that Hoag probably could have shortened this novel by about 200 pages if she took out some of the angst. Then maybe I wouldn't feel so cheated. I also would recommend the abridged audio book version of Night Sins because it prunes out a lot of the endless angst.
Like I said before, the angst eclipses the investigation into Josh's abduction. There were times when I seriously questioned Mitch's ability to be police chief early in the novel. He was very very insistant that this COULD NOT be a case of kidnapping because crime doesn't exsist in perfect, perfect Deer Lake. He was also very hesistant to question any of the locals even though they did some things that made them look highly suspicious. I mean Megan was the only one who really seemed serious about the case half the time. It seemed like every time she tried to prusue a possible lead, Mitch would try to stonewall her. I felt really sorry for Megan. It seemed like everybody was trying to undermine her all the time. From Mitch, to the sherriff that was feeding critical info to the press, to a nosy reporter out to make things difficult, Megan couldn't make any sort of move with out being criticized dispite the fact that she was the only one trying to crack the case.
On reflection, very little happens during the investigation. Just about every gain the police make is because the kidnappers want them to have this piece of evidence or that piece of evidence.
Despite my criticism, I still enjoyed Night Sins. Not the best book ever, but this two parter isn't the worst capitalistic grab by an author I've ever seen. That honor goes to Laurell K. Hamilton for trying to pass off an teaser from her crummy Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter Novels as a short story not once but twice.

Rating:
Summary: Suds n' Suspense
Review: When I found out Tami Hoag got her start writing romance novels, I was a bit surprised. My introduction to her work was the gritty "Ashes to Ashes," followed by its hard-edge sequel, "Dust to Dust." Both novels had romantic subplots, but violence, murder and police work seemed the primary emphasis. Not so with "Night Sins," published earlier than either "Ashes" or "Dust." For this one, Hoag wears her romance-writing background on her sleeve.

Not that it's a bad thing. Hoag's a talented storyteller and, sudden shifts in point-of-view notwithstanding, a decent writer. This story about a kidnapping that tears apart a town, a marriage and nearly destroys a career, is as gripping as her later work. I just wasn't prepared to spend so much time exploring the burning passions of Agent Megan O'Malley and Chief Mitch Holt. The budding romance between these investigators isn't the only aspect that nudges "Night Sins" into soap opera territory. Almost all of the characters are broadly drawn types--O'Malley, the hard-nosed investigator out to prove herself in "a man's world"; Mitch, the handsome chief whose past prevents him from loving another woman, until Megan enters the picture; Paul, the selfish husband; Paige Price, the "mercenary slut" TV reporter, Hannah, the saintly wife--who keep this potboiler bubbling. There are several chapters where I found myself mentally cuing dramatic music when a new shocking development is revealed.

But these soapy elements didn't deter my enjoyment of this book (another sudsy clue: "Night Sins" sounds like a title of a Nora Roberts or Rosemary Rogers novel, not a suspense novel). Now I plan to read this novel's follow-up, "Guilty as Sin" (you pretty much have to). Like all good soap operas, "Night Sins" had me clamoring for more.