Customer Reviews

Instruments of the Night

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

To those initiates lucky enough to have discovered Thomas H. Cook, it is no surprise that he has won an Edgar, it is more of a surprise that he has not won more. Cook tends to write novels that focus on the inner workings of characters (and the demons they face) as they work on solving a mystery, the original crimes have usually taken place in the past and are still somehow linked to the present.

Cook weaves his narratives so well that you never know what is coming - he leads you where he wants and suddenly the twists and turns set in and by the end of the book, you never know what hit you! Instruments of Night is much like his other novels in that the main character, Paul Graves, is helping to discover the truth about a mystery of the past. Graves is an author who writes a series about a killer named Kessler, his lackey Sykes and the detective that is always in pursuit Slovak, which is set in old New York. Graves is invited up to Riverwood, an artist's retreat, by the owner Alison Davies to look into a murder that happened 30 years earlier.

Davies is looking for closure and as Graves, with the help of the other summer guest Eleanor Stern, delves deeper into murder of young Faye he also must look deep within himself to keep his own demons at bay. Graves must face his past, the death of his parents and the gruesome murder of his sister Gwen, in order to create a plausible story about Faye's death and complete the task that Davies has put before him.

Cook does what he does best in Instruments - he keeps the reader on the edge of their seat and keeps them guessing. I thought I had it all figured out and then WHAMO!!!! A new twist and turn, then I thought I had it wrapped up again and BLAM!!!! Out of no where - I was stunned!

This is what makes Thomas Cook one of the best writers out there. You always know that there are twists and turns but the endings never cease to amaze - and they are always so realistic. He also has Graves imagine different stories throughout the book - and even tho most of them are short - they are so well drawn that the reader can't imagine another possibility. I highly recommend Cook and Instruments of Night.

Thomas H. Cook's other novels--I've read all I can--offer a tragic but ultimately humane vision of human fallibility, remorse, and reparation through love and decency. Usually, his main characters are suffering greatly from a wrong in which they somehow participated, through naivete, misunderstanding, just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or even outright wrongdoing. This novel is no exception, but unfortunately the darkness of past experience is not just too much for the main character in the novel, it's too much for Cook himself. His usual excellence is eclipsed. Literally, something is blocking the light that keeps shining in the world, no matter what evil is done there. There's a truth in what Cook creates--a person who has seen and experienced the horror that haunts the main character, aptly named Graves, is unlikely to be able to recover. Suicidal thinking and self destructive isolation are truly and honestly the frequent resort of people who have been so inhumanly traumatized. What's worrying about this book is that Graves and Cook himself start to seem indistinguishable. Graves's past, his fictional creations, and the case he's working on merge into a single story--and through accidents of writing, Cook seems to reveal that he is merging with all of it himself. At one point Graves INCORRECTLY quotes Tolstoy's famous saying: "Happy families are all alike. Unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way," by saying: "All families are unhappy,..." Whose mistake is that? I'm afraid it is Cook's mistake, one that reveals him in so dark a frame of mind that his memory is distorted, his vision as dark and negative as his character's. Clearly his purpose in writing this meditation on a downward spiral was not the putative MAIN plot, which is weak, and reuses plot devices Cook has used more skilfully before. He really intends to get right to the bottom with Graves. It's always a temptation in reading him to feel a confusion between narrator and author, to wonder who really WAS that lost girl with the dark hair and what really WAS the irretrievable moment for which he can't atone. This time, those sources of anguish seem to have overwhelmed the artist's ability to get distance from his own work, or to give us any air or light. I, for one, hope that the novel's last line "Never, no. Never." will be true, and that Mr. Cook will not surrender, and WILL return many more times, with the incandescence of his beautiful prose, to cast the light of simple decency on whatever darkness haunts his characters--or him.

I made up the term "archaeomystery" to designate the genre in which Thomas H. Cook is now specializing: mystery novels in which the crime took place 30 or more years ago. In the typical Cook archaeomystery - "The Chatham School Affair," e.g. - there is little or no present-day detection, and the narrative consists of the measured revelation of events to the reader by the involved narrator.

In this variation on the theme, novelist Paul Graves is invited to an estate on the Hudson to "imagine" a solution to the 1946 murder of a 16-year-old girl. Graves is the quasi-Cookish author of a series of novels pitting the impotent Detective Slovak against the sadistic and omnipotent Kessler and his apprentice/slave Sykes. These novels are firmly rooted in the horrible murder of Graves' own sister. The 'revelation' theme is played out in Graves' obsessively guilt-ridden memories of that murder. There is not much mystery to it, but there doesn't have to be.

Meanwhile, Graves joins forces with sympathetic playwright Eleanor Stern to peruse the old files, photos, and reports, many made by the Slovak-ish detective Portman in whose trail they are following. Graves' imaginative talents are about evenly split among reliving his past, reconstructing the day Faye Harrison was strangled, and finishing up his last Slovak/Kessler novel (how can you 'save' the detective who has become just about as weary of life as the author?). The ratio of detective work to brooding atmosphere is high for a Cook novel; the dead ends and twists are handled very well.

Cook's novels often leave you feeling drained after having been masterfully shown the bleakness and pointlessness of life. However, "Instruments" is the most upbeat of Cook's novels, at least in its attempt to rescue the protagonist from isolation and eternal darkness.

In an interview available on the Net somewhere, Cook writes that the hardest part of his writing is the conception of the "surprise" at the end, which he says is "expected" of him by now. In general, this surprise is the least reliable part of Cook's novels. This may be just my own opinion, but I think that too often it depends on someone having done something which the reader has no reason to expect he/she would be psychologically capable of. In "The Chatham School Affair" he got it exactly right, I think; in "Mortal Memory" and "Breakheart Hill", it jars. This is a borderline case. The Explanation almost works, and you can see, leafing back through the novel, how there were clues. But I don't think the clues QUITE bear the weight of the explanation. Furthermore I can't quite make sense of the events that are supposed to have taken place in the critical years. For example (this will make sense only to people who have finished the book), was the chain of ownership of the box publicly known during the War? Wasn't that risky? Does it make sense that so-and-so was really a 'director'? And how and why did Grossman turn up where he did?

Having said this, however, I readily concede that it almost works even in my opinion, and my opinions tend to be very picky and demanding about such things. I give it 4.9 stars, and many will go the extra tenth.

say that you never want to read another book by the author again, but that is my position after reading this exquisitely-crafted, beautifully written, devastating and disgusting thriller.

I just don't have space in my beautiful mind for the wretched, ghastly thoughts that Cook renders in such perfect prose. I feel like this novel was so disturbing that I just don't want to face another one like it. In terms of emotional disgust and darkness of the spirit, I'd put it on a level with Story of O by Pauline Reage, only minus the eroticism. One more incident of someone being forced to torture their innocent loved-one, and the book would almost descend into comic parody, it was so over-the-top. Do not read this book. Do not do this sort of psychological damage to yourself. I think of Margaret Atwood's description of divorce, "You're still alive but there is less of you." That's how I feel about having read this book.

Cook thankfully offers a faint ray of hope at the end, otherwise this would be too dark for any to attempt its icy peaks.

While this book might not be for everyone because of its disturbing content, made even more effective by the writer's strong talent, I found it to be a real page-turner. The main plot of who killed Faye Harrison was really not as interesting as the subplot of who killed Paul Grave's sister. The part about Faye did not come to a satisfying conclusion. But the portrayal of Paul Graves, who harbored such terrible guilt, was very strong. Throughout the book I wondered why he couldn't forgive himself for something that wasn't his fault--at the end I understood. It had a disturbing ending that left me thinking about it for days.

This book kept me reading it word for word, page by page from beginning to end. I have not done this in a long long time.

Mr. Cook is able to keep the pace of this book moving along while challenging the reader to uncover the truth of his story.

I liked the way he brought the facets of the tale together at the end...the journey of the author to face his personal demons and the truth of the mystery.

I did not guess the end of the story until I read it myself.....one indicator of a good book.

This book is extremely well written and the reader will not want to pass up any passages at all. It is a twisted tale of evil and redemption; of guilt and love. The double tale is an ever deepening mystery full of twists and turns.

I was at once repelled and captivated by it. The fictional detective characters, the story of Paul's past and the story of the 50 year old mystery are all part of a seamless tale. I recommend it to anyone who likes mysteries of the mind.

There is poetry in this man's ( Cooks) writing as well as disturbing and haunting images. He seems to know so much about pain and suffering i found myself wondering about him. The story never bores, it crackles with hypnotic prose and disturbing realities. Outstanding....

This is Cook's best book - possibly the best book I've ever read. The ending will knock your socks off!

A good read occasionally spoiled by a glitch in digital transposition. One reads along expecting the hero to take a "deep bream" or is it breath? It might be a fish but reading on, one realizes that the scanner cannot change fonts. And so the mood, so carefully constructed by the author is lost to confusion or comedy. Worth the price, but the paperback may be the better choice.