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NIGHT FALL
by Nelson DeMille
Time Warner Books, December 2004
496 pages
16.99GBP
ISBN: 0316858471


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Most thrillers seem to be 'wham, bam, thank you ma'am' hurtles around the world with the hero's life and limbs in danger at every turn. That ain't so in Nelson DeMille's NIGHT FALL which has to be the most one-paced thriller I've ever read -- and that pace is a stately crawl.

In fact, I was on the point of giving up on the book several times over the opening 150 pages or so.The first third of the book is a very clumsy information dump to the point where it really is all talk and no action. And even though the book hots up a tad later, I found myself unable to accept the logic of what was happening, and howled 'tell the media!' at regular intervals.

In the end, the only reason I stayed with it was because of the lead character John Corey. He's a former NYPD cop with the smartest of smart mouths, now working with the elite Anti-Terrorist Task Force. Several desks away is his wife Kate, an FBI agent. Five years on from the mysterious crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996 where 230 people were killed, she takes John to a memorial service on a beach overlooking where the accident happens, and soon starts instilling doubt into his mind as to the cause of the disaster.

Corey starts to wonder if in fact the aircraft was shot down by a missile, and he's soon on the trail of a video -- that may or may not exist -- allegedly taken by a couple on the beach that night with more smutty motives in mind.

NIGHT FALL isn't a conventional thriller -- it's more like a conspiracy theory gone mad. In fact, you might want to look out your tin helmets when you read it. Reviewers' Law no. 27 is beware of writers getting a bee in their bonnet about a true event (see Patricia Cornwell and Jack the Ripper if you have any doubts!)

For some people Corey might get tiresome and yes, he's a cliche in many ways, but for me he was the only reason to read the book. Kate is a one-dimensional convenience character, and there's not much there to make the reader warm to her -- particularly when it's Corey who puts his job and life on the line to investigate the plane crash. Kate's career is apparently just too dear to her, despite the crash being her obsession.

There are one or two neat little cameos, including Corey's ex-NYPD partner Dom, and anally-retentive hotel manager Leslie Rosenthal, but generally there's a lack of characterisation to go with the shallow, linear plot.

NIGHT FALL is seriously one-paced and lacks tension, but is just about worth your time if you like the sound of Corey. The ending, though, falls solidly into rip-off territory -- I was hopping mad when I realised what DeMille had done. With stories based on true events, there's always a chance the writer will end up boxing him or herself into a corner -- and that's exactly what happens here.

Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, December 2004

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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