Customer Reviews

Hell Is Always Today (Nick Miller)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a 2005 reprint of a 1968 novel in the Sergeant Nick Miller series. The setting is a large city in northern England, but it is not clear, in this particular novel, which city. Perhaps the author expected readers to have read the earlier novels in the series. The story is a complex plot about a serial killer.

The story, like many others by Jack Higgins, takes place in a very short period of time - less than a week. A number of young women of the evening have been killed by an unknown assailant called The Rainlover in the press. Another murder occurs, but it does not quite fit the pattern.

The plot is complex, and a suspect emerges early in the story, but all is not quite as it seems with the last murder. An escaped criminal (a cat burgler) enters into the story to complicate matters. The final climax has the usual makings of a Jack Higgins novel as everything ends in a final battle.

I would note that I bought the novel for some light reading, and stayed up late to finish it. It is brain candy rather than great literature, but most certainly does not deserve the one star rating of the previous reviewer. If he is a Jack Higgins fan, I am not sure what he was expecting, particularly if he has read previous novels in this series.

I've read most of Higgins's novels. My favorites were the WWII thrillers. But, his crime books are top notch. This one is no exception. Even though it was written back in the '60's and recently reprinted it keeps your complete attention as you quickly turn the pages. This was about a sculptor turned serial killer. Plenty of excitement.

Higgins and I were born the same year so he can do little wrong. He was one of those authors I discovered while flying across one ocean or another that I continued to track once on land. Exciting, adventure tales always. His Nick Miller character was wroth several books; he has not moved on with him. Too bad!

I am a long term Jack Higgins fan who was sorely disappointed by this book. It doesn't read like somthing he wrote, or else its somthing he put together when he was first starting out. The characters, the dialogue and overall pace of the story is all wrong, in my opinion. I wonder if others feel the same way.