Customer Reviews

After Hours (Berkley Sensation)

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The first half of this book you don't know whether you like Nick or not. But as you read you realize he has reasons to be cynical.

Portia Carr Wells is the widow of the president of The Nature Presevation Society. She has just been asked to take her husband's place as president.

After moonlighting as a security guard at a fund raising dinner, Detective Nick Sinestra follows Portia to her mother's. Her mother is an aging movie star who lives a hermit-like existance. Nick also moonlights for a sleasy tabloid, Star Gazer.

Portia figures out that he was the one who led the press to her mother's sanctuary. But there is nothing she can do about it.

Nick gets offered 10,000 dollars for a follow-up on Portia. His Captain has ordered him to take 4 weeks vacation, so he thinks why not.

Nick finds out that Portia thinks her husband was murdered by a real estate mogul. When things start to happen to and around Portia, Nick confesses and promises to find out what happened to her husband. He feels uneasy and very wrong about what he has done to her. For the first time the people whose privacy he has invaded become real to him.

When her barn is burned down, he insists on paying for it. He suddenly realizes that something he has done may be bringing danger to her life.

As the plot moves on we realize that Nick is a good detective, and he is using everything he knows to help Portia. Esspecially because he is falling in love with her.

A good read and enjoyable plot.

Like many NYPD Detectives and cops in general, Nick Sinestra is divorced and supplements his salary by working celebrity events as a guard. Unlike other police officers, Nick also enhances his income by selling ?findings? to the sleazy Star Gazer tabloid. His current target for both of his moonlighting jobs is shy widow Portia Wells, whose deceased husband was the president of the highly regarded Nature Preservation Society. Nick follows her from Manhattan to New Rochelle. When an aggressive reporter arrives, Portia realizes that Nick sold her out.

Because of a confrontation with a homeland security specialist, Nick?s superior places him on vacation for a month, his first time off in over a year and a half. This enables Star Gazer to send Nick to Colorado to find information on the reclusive Portia. As he tries to regain her trust, Nick realizes that someone is trying to frighten Portia with each incident, more dangerous than the previous one. As the New Yorker falls in love with his pigeon and Portia reciprocates, thugs, most likely working for builder Mahoney, assault her leaving his beloved ON THIN ICE.

Lynn Erickson has earned a deserved reputation for powerfully taut romantic suspense tales and her latest AFTER HOURS will substantiate her esteem. The story line starts slow as Ms. Erickson introduces the two key players and the mistrust that is critical to the novel. Once Portia returns to Colorado, the novel accelerates until the final confrontation. Although the audience ironically knows who is pushing Portia ON THE EDGE, readers will appreciate the unfolding of the drama as Nick risks his life to keep his beloved safe.

Harriet Klausner

Portia Wells's husband, a nature activist, died in a one-car accident on a stretch of road he knew well, but Portia is the only one who finds his death suspicious. She's in NYC at a charity function for the Nature Preservation Society. Her husband was the president of the NPS, and she's been offered the presidency in his stead.

Nick Sinestra is a disenchanted cop who moonlights for a tabloid newspaper, at the charity function to keep an eye out for any interesting celebrities.

Portia sees him as a hero when he saves her from an overzealous reporter.... only to find that Nick's the one who tracked her down and divulged her whereabouts.

When Nick is ordered to take a vacation, he takes the tabloid up on its offer and follows her out to her Colorado ranch, where she and her ranch appear to be in increasing danger.

A lot of people complain that After Hours starts slowly, and maybe it does, but it seems to fit the story quite well. Or maybe I was just patient because I trust Lynn Erickson's writing.

Nick and Portia both have a lot of personal issues to work through, as well as trying to figure out if someone killed her husband and who and why, and who's threatening her. Their problems are realistic and are dealt with honestly, and the secondary characters, including Portia's brother-in-law and his wife, and Nick's partner, are three-dimensional and have issues of their own.

Lynn Erickson (Molly Swanton and Carla Peltonen) has been one of my favorite romantic suspense authors for a while now, and After Hours is no exception. What's frustrating is that they only had one book out after After Hours: Husband and Lover (Berkley Sensation), and I read that one over two years ago. They mentioned then that they'd been having trouble with their next book, but darn! I'm hoping there's a benign reason for the lack of new books.

NYPD Detective Nick Sinestra moonlights by providing security at celebrity events. Nick also augments his income by providing tips to the sleazy tabloid the Star Gazer. It turns out to be a lucrative deal

He spots Portia Wells, a widow who is in New York for a charity drive for the Nature Preservation Society, and is attracted to her. But more importantly, he wants to get some scoop on her. After following her to her mother's house and alerting the media, she is accosted by a belligerent reporter. Nick steps in as her knight in shining armor. Only she soon discovers that it is he who sold her out.

Soon, temperamental Nick is in a fist fight with a visiting officer, and is told to take a 30 day vacation. Not sure what to do, he takes a trip to Colorado to see if he can't gather another scoop on Portia.

Back in Colorado, Portia is trying to make a go at her husband's ranch, but still has doubts that his death was an accident. When she accepts his presidency on the NPS, strange things start to happen. Thugs threaten her, her barn burns down... Nick realizes he has put her in jeopardy, and vows to protect her, while falling in love with her.

While the story moves along swiftly, it is also pretty predictable, so there won't be any surprises (well, maybe one). Not quite on par with a Linda Howard suspense novel, but it was a pretty interesting story.

I found this book very difficult to read. It started slowly and really didn't move along at a decent pace. Most of it seemed to drag on and on and on.

Portia also came off as stupid and helpless, constantly whining about not having a man in her life. The story would've been a lot more interesting if she'd been portrayed as an independent woman who found herself having no choice but to rely on the help of a stranger. It also seemed to me that a good portion of the dialogue was Nick saying "Huh" or "Uh." Talk about filler.

And there was one thing that really bothered me. Perhaps in her effort to portray Nick as a New Yorker, he attended a Yankees/Rockies game. Any baseball fan knows that a Yankee/Rockies game would be a rare occurrence since they play in different leagues and would only meet once every three or four years. Then, while at the game, Nick looks around at the large crowd and thinks to himself how there are only 3000-4000 fans at a game on a weeknight back home. Again, misinformation since the Yankees normally draw 40000+ every night. Finally, the next night, his new cop friends invite him to a sports bar to watch the Yankees/Rockies game, which is "the fourth of fifth of a series." Again, any baseball fan knows that most series are three games, a few are four games, none are five games. And an interleague series is *always* three games. To me, this whole "sidebar" showed me that the author did little to no research on something she felt the need to add to her story in order to develop her character.

Lynn Erickson's put out much better stories. This one really wasn't worth the time.

I picked this book up because of what it said on the back, it seemed like it would be fast paced and not let a fast reader down! It kept my attention. Portia has been in the spolight since she was a child and now is wondering if she should take over her late husband's place as president for the NPS. During this novel, you'll meet Nick who is a detective for the NYPD and yet a moonlighter for the Star Gazer, a tabloid. After starting to protect Portia from threats, Nick drops his gig with the Star Gazer and wins Portia in the end. If you like fast pace and on the edge, pick this book!