Customer Reviews

Cover of Night: A Novel

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(38)
2 star:		(31)
1 star:		(31)

 

 

Cate is still mourning the loss of her husband who died three years earlier of an infection, leaving her with infant twin boys. Realizing that she could not make ends meet in Seattle, she moves to a small town in Idaho and buys a B&B. When her latest guest leaves via the window rather than the front door and does not come back the next day, she notifies the police. Meanwhile, the town is trying desperately to get Cate and the local handyman, Cal together - even going so far as to sabotage her plumbing, but she does not seem to notice him.

The guest is Jeffrey Layton, an accountant who is blackmailing a Chicago gangster. He has info on a flash drive that would ruin the gangster, and he has left a trail straight to Cate's door. When the gangster hires thugs to bring Jeffrey and the flash drive in, they rough up Cate and her friend and have a run-in Cal, who would do anything to protect Cate. The thugs leave with bruised egos and Layton's suitcase. Sensing danger, Cate has her mother take the twins to Seattle for a visit, which turns out to be smart. The two thugs come up with a ridiculous plan to take the town hostage to obtain the flash drive when they determine that she did not give them all Layton's luggage.

When the hired thugs (their numbers swollen to six) strike, all hell breaks loose in Trail Stop, Idaho. Little do they know Cal is a former Special Forces soldier - a one man army if you will. With the aid of his former mentor Joshua Creed, Cal organizes the townspeople who are cut off from the outside world. Cate and Cal are forced to climb their way out of the valley via a sheer cliff to obtain help.

While the plot is engaging, there is a lack of chemistry between the main characters. We know Cal is in love with Cate, but Cate never even noticed him, so her sudden turnaround is hard to buy. The requisite love scene between the two comes so late in the story that it seems like a last minute add on. Also in short supply is the snappy dialogue that keeps the pace of a typical Howard novel. While I enjoyed this novel, it certainly is not in my top 10 LH faves.

I was so excited to get this book. The storyline was so promising, but I didn't think it went deep enough. As a previous reviewer remarked, Cate didn't notice Calvin until half way into the book. We got Cate's take on things, but rarely a glimpse at what Calvin was thinking, feeling, ect. That is the element that was missing in her story. It seemed like it was rushed or something. I love Linda Howard, but this one is not her best work. Wait until it comes out in paperback.

Some of her best works are: Mr. Perfect, Kill and Tell, and Now You See Her.

This book is yet another disappointment from Linda Howard, who seems to have lost her ability to write either mystery or romance. Cover of Night is slow starting, repetitive,--Howard tells us again and again what a good, responsible person and mother Cate is, which, since she's our plucky heroine, we assume is a given--and overwritten, an ongoing problem with Howard. In attempting to establish character, she consistently tells the reader too much, as though she doesn't trust her audience to "get" it. Here's an example: Describing Cate's self-sacrifice and unselfishness, Howard writes: "Just about the only extra grooming she had time for these days was keeping her legs and underarms shaved, which she did because--well, just because. Besides, all it took was an [the edition I bought has a typo of two "ans"]--extra three minutes in the shower." Judicious editing would have reduced this description to: "Just about the only extra grooming she had time for these days was keeping her legs and underarms shaved," which is more than enough to let us sympathize with this busy mother of twins and owner of a Bed and Breakfast, who doesn't take enough time for herself. To tell more is the mark of a bad writer, and makes the reader (at least this reader) impatient. Perhaps Howard is not to blame as much as her editors for passages like this, but the book is full of them. It is also uneven. The action sequences are marginally better, crisper, without all the interior monologues or descriptions of motivation that slow the first part of the book down and make it--and its heroine-- dull. Are these sequences better edited or is Howard just better at describing action than she is in creating characters? Hard to know; neither work all that well here.

There are other problems, too, but the most serious is its incredible plot. WARNING: plot revelations follow. Howard's own characters say it best: "Toxtel's plan was one of the most idiotic things he'd ever heard in his life....." and later, "This whole thing was so over the top it didn't make sense." The "plan," so to speak, is to blow up bridges, put an entire town under seige, take the inhabitants hostage, and kill innocent citizens--all in order to recover an item which the protagonists ONLY ASSUME IS HIDDEN IN THE TOWN! The expense of such an operation alone makes it unbelievable, never mind the impracticality or logistics of it. The plan's mastermind is not even portrayed as an out-of-control, power-hungry madman, who might conceivably come up with such a deranged idea, but simply as a rather plodding hitman, angry because his first attempt to recover the object failed. Almost as incredible is our hero's action in allowing these bad guys to leave town in the first place, when any thinking, sane person would have turned them over to authorities. But of course they had to leave town so that the remainder of the plot--and I use the term lightly--could unfold.

CofN is also highly predictable; I knew our hero and heroine would have reason to climb a mountain from the first moment we learn they have climbing experience. But even then, the climb is aborted, as though Howard herself grew bored with it. And then there is the relationship between Cate and our hero, which other reviewers have commented on and which I agree only adds to our disbelief. In this, as well as in other aspects of the story, Cate comes off as slightly stupid, while our hero challenges our believability by doing a sudden about-face (no pun intended) from blushing, stammering handyman to Super Marine. Precocious, baby-talking four-year olds and assorted other good and bad characters with mysterious pasts help clutter the landscape but do little to enrich the story.

Again, I cannot help but suspect that Cover of Night is an earlier unpublished Howard manuscript which has been updated and offered to an audience eager for her next best seller. If I'm wrong and this is the level of her current writing, then I also can't help anticipating future Howard offerings with a certain amount of trepidation.

This book isn't bad, but it certainly doesn't reflect Linda Howard's writing talents. I won't rehash the plot as many of the reviewers have already done so. The characters in this novel were not that memorable. In fact, I read the book a few days ago and I'm having trouble recalling the names of anyone other than the main characters. The plot was totally unbelievable and even worse the way it unfolded didn't create suspense, romantic tension or anything else. It was almost like the author when she was 2/3rd's of the way through the plot thought to herself "this is dumb," but like her bad guys (who were doubting things also) she decided to persevere with the tangled up mess. Even the bad guys were doubting the feasibility of the town attack!
That said, the two main "love stories" had a lot of promise, but they didn't unfold well. I found myself rereading some of the pages to see if I missed something. There were so many opportunities for us as readers to get to know Cate and Calvin through the townfolk's eyes in a humorous, romantic way, but Howard didn't take advantage of this tactic. The romance between the other couple was suddenly there. Again, this could have developed more slowly, more thoroughly and both romances could have made the book more satisfying to the romance reader inspite of the outlandish plot.
Howard did not even begin to reach her potential in both mystery and romance writing with this book. It is a beach read, but not much else. Buy it in paperback or get it from the library!

I love Linda Howard's writing. She makes it look so damned effortless (her and Nora both). That said, I loved the book. I know there have been reviews where people felt there wasn't enough romance in the book but this book is more than that.

The strength of Cover of Night is that you get a strong sense of who Cait is before the romance begins in earnest. I like that she's a real heroine. She doesn't wait for the guy to swoop in to save her but she's a thinking woman. I did get annoyed by the use of the soft R sound with the twins. But I appreciated Cait being written as a real mother with real responsibilities (sadly, it's pretty rare)

The action scenes are all very well done (my only complaint is that several things were repeated too much for instance how bullets would be stopped by a refrigerator). I liked Cal a lot as a hero, I believed his character. I did like how Howard transformed him for the reader at the same time she transformed him for Cait although I did find it a bit abrupt, I still found it believable.

As for the ratio of romance to suspense - it's not 50/50. It's probably 70/30 but I thought it was extremely well done and unlike some of my other favorite authors who went the way of just suspense and no romance, I thought Howard did a good job with the balance. I don't think so much in terms of percentage but how it fits overall and when I shut the book I thought it was a romance.

I almost didn't buy this book based on some of the negative reviews here, but I did and I will add that some of the criticism is valid, but by and large it was still a good read and worth my time. The plot is contrived. The bad guys hold an entire town siege. Several of the characters in the book agree with this. But every day we read of real life stories that are just as far fetched, so I could suspend disbelief to make the plot work for me. Ms. Howard is a talented author who consistently creates a good story worthy of reading. Her characters are not carbon copies of previous characters and she doesn't use a "formula" like other successful authors. Not a keeper for me (and most of hers are) but worth the time and money.

Cate is a widow of 3 years with twin 4 year old boys. She did not want to rely on her parents or family to help support them so she moved to the tiny town of Trail Stop where she and her late husband used to go rock climbing. She bought a bed and breakfast and is making a go of it. She has friends in the town and good employees plus she relies on the handyman, Cal Harris, who seems shy and older to her. She is so focused on her kids, the B & B that she does not take time for herself nor does she spend much time noticing or becoming close friends with those around her.

One of her guests comes to the dining room doorway and backs out. She goes later to see if he wants a tray brought up and finds his window open and his car gone! Luckily he had paid by credit card so she is not shorted her money. However, when she realizes he left toiletries and a suitcase and doesn't come back for them in a day, she calls the sheriff. She puts his things away in her attic. Cate also gets a call from a car rental agency saying his car is overdue being turned in....the call sounds suspicious to her so she call the agency back and finds out the call was phony.

A couple days later to gentlemen check into the B & B, one dressed in a suit and the other more casual. Cate is in the kitchen with one of her friends, Neenah, making cookies and discussing the mystery man who took off and speculating on why and if he was on the run. The new guests grab Neenah and put a gun to her temple and demand that Cate retrieve the mystery guest's suitcase. But first the handyman Cal comes in the parking lot in his truck. Cate tells them he is there to get the mail. They let her have him come in, stamp her mail and give it to him. Cal drives away. The one gunman holds Neenah with the gun at her temple and Cate goes upstairs while the other gunman watches the front door. They go to the attic where she retrieves the suitcase all the while wondering what she can do as she knows the gunmen will kill her and Neenah. As she hands the gunman the suitcase, Cal comes up into the attic with a shotgun point right at the armed man. The look in Cal's eyes in nothing that Cate has seen before! Cal gets the armed man to drop his weapon, take the suitcase and help his friend who Cal had knocked unconscious and they take off.

Thus begins a whole series of events where Cate has revelations about Cal, the town and herself while they deal with tragic events and fight for their lives. I felt the plot had a few holes in it and wasn't as tight as many of Ms. Howard's other suspense storeis but there were some very touching scenes as well that helped hold it together.

A good but not great read.

The reason I enjoy LH so much is her willingness to experiment with many different styles of the romance genre. Time travel, historical, bubbly, emotionally wrenching, spy novels, etc. Like the Nora Roberts, you haven't read one then read them all with LH. Ok, straight suspense isn't her best, but still this is way better than most suspense novels, because at least I care whether the characters live or die. The last suspense novel I read before this was called Kill the Messenger and I was hoping the kid would get hit by a semi and put me out of the misery. Can't wait to see what LH will try next.

This book starts out like some of the best Linda Howard has written. My favories are All the Queen's Men, Son of the Morning and Diamond Bay. In Cover of Night, the resolution at the end seemed rushed and our hero did not get a chance to be heroic. I was expecting so much more from the ending and as a result was disappointed. Still worth reading but not her best.

Because I have been disappointed in Linda Howard's last few novels, I waited for this one to come out in paperback. Now I wish I would've waited to pick it up at a used book sale. Though I may be repeating what many of the other reviews here state, the plot was unbelievable, the characters not easy to relate to, and the ending much too abrupt. I miss the "old" Linda Howard stuff. Whatever happened to characters like the Mackenzies in A Game of Chance and Mackenzie's Mountain, and plots like those of Mr. Perfect and After the Night. Maybe it's time for some sequels of these well-established characters and interesting plot lines!!