The Night Monster: A Novel of Suspense [Mass Market Paperback]

James Swain (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 25, 2010

 
The past has come back to haunt P.I. Jack Carpenter, former head of the Broward County Missing Persons Unit. As a young cop he failed to stop the kidnapping of a college coed by a shockingly large assailant—and neither victim nor attacker was ever seen again. But eighteen years later, when his daughter, Jessie, asks him to bird-dog a creep who’s been shadowing her college basketball team, Carpenter’s pursuit of the voyeur leads him smack into another run-in with his old nemesis, who abducts one of Jessie’s teammates. With the assistance of the kidnap victim’s tycoon father and precious little time before the trail goes cold, Jack and his dog, Buster, hit the ground running—following a twisted trail from the ruins of a shuttered mental asylum with an infamous past to the streets of a sinister small town with a ghastly secret.
 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Spock-like logic and a bullet-train–paced plot drive Swain's third thriller to feature Florida PI Jack Carpenter (after Midnight Rambler and Night Stalker). When Carpenter fails to stop the brutal abduction of his daughter's college basketball teammate, he's painfully reminded of a serial abduction case he bungled 18 years before. Unearned guilt makes this latest case personal. Half-wit giant Lonnie and fellow inmate/mentor Mouse escape from an asylum for the criminally insane, and start seizing student nurses. Lonnie twice nearly kills Carpenter, once by tossing a 400-pound Coke machine at him. Carpenter's (and pooch Buster's) dogged search takes them to a small, eerie Florida townwhere the victims have been imprisoned. Bullets predictably fly when Carpenter's FBI friend, Ken Linderman, whose daughter has been abducted, pitches in to help. This installment grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go until the last page. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

“Easily a top candidate for best crime novel of the year.”
—Lansing State Journal
 
“Starts on an adrenaline high and never loses steam. [James] Swain excels at sturdy storytelling and intelligent plotting.”
—South Florida Sun-Sentinel

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (May 25, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345515471
• ISBN-13: 978-0345515476
• Product Dimensions: 4 x 1 x 6.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (80 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #709,982 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

James Swain is the author of fourteen nationally bestselling novels. His novels have been translated into French, Japanese, Russian, German, Serbian, Bulgarian, and Croatian, and chosen as Mysteries of the Year by Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. Swain has received three Barry Award nominations, a Florida Book award for fiction, and the prestigious Prix Calibre .38 for Best American Crime Writing. An avid magician, he has written and lectured extensively on the subject. Visit his web site at www.jimswain.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THIS is a GREAT read, an awesome page turner, August 27, 2009

By 

CRP Ag (Texas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Night Monster: A Novel of Suspense (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

I LOVE this book. I have read several books through the Amazon Vine program, and I always try to pick authors I am not familiar with. Some have been good, some not so much, THIS is a great suspense novel.

I am not one who believes that the opening line of a story is critical, that said, this one is pretty darn good. Title, The Night Monster, opening line, "Cops weren't supposed to get frightened." How great is that, it just conjures up a picture of a police officer encountering something in the line of duty so beyond his comprehension and experience, he is afraid, or as the case develops, terrified by a life altering event.

As a brief summary, the story is presented in the first person by Jack Carpenter, a former detective. Jack works on finding missing people. To characterize Jack as tenacious is really selling him short. He is willing to do anyting to find and save a missing person. The zeal lead to his early departure from the police force.

Jack's story shows us the bare emotional journey that a parent seaching for a missing child can go through. We can feel the pain and anguish. Jack is not a superhuman, he is not robocop, just a driven guy who wants to make a difference.

This is a super page turner, you will not be able to put it down. I recommend this without hesitation or reservation.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is doggone good, May 27, 2010

By 

Beth Saboori (Santa Monica, California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Night Monster: A Novel of Suspense (Mass Market Paperback)

Eighteen years ago when Jack Carpenter was only a kid cop he answered a domestic violence call and didn't ask for back up. He thought he was up for the job. He was not. And it was not a domestic violence case, it was an abduction. A young woman was being taking by a three hundred pound giant of a man who tossed jack aside as if he weighed nothing at all.

Since then he's been thrown off the force because of a police brutality charge and now he is a private investigator who specializes in finding missing children. He gets a call from his basketball playing daughter, who tells him she thinks someone is stalking the team. He responds, confronts the stalker, a filthy mouse of a man named Mouse. The stalker has a pal, the same giant who'd gotten the better of Jack so long ago and again he gets the better of him, abducting Sara Long, one of his daughter's teammates.

He is determined to get the girl back and with his faithful Australian Shepherd Buster he sets out on the trail of the kidnappers in this thriller that is so packed full with action that it's almost too hard to take in. Just when you think Swain is about to let up, something else happens. I just can't believe how good James Swain is. This book is doggone good. So is Buster, who provides a bit of comedic relief among all the tension. If the words, "I couldn't put it down" ever applied to a book, they apply to this one.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply Superb - A Definite Page-Burner, July 26, 2009

By 

J. Avellanet "author of Get to Market Now!" (Williamsburg, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Night Monster: A Novel of Suspense (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Yes, you will be up all night finishing this book if you plan on starting it any time after 8pm. So be forewarned.

From the opening chapter, with the search for a missing elementary school child, the story burns from one moment to the next. Admittedly, the main character's set up is a cliche - the ex-cop turned private eye with a laser-focus on his expertise (in this case, finding missing kids). But as John Gardner once wrote, All American fiction boils down to one of two plot lines - man rides into town or man rides out of town - it's what the author does with that story that counts. And boy does James Swain deliver.

Once you read that first bit of chapter 3 as the main character, Jack Carpenter, is searching for a missing boy, you know this is not your typical hard-boiled ex-cop story: "Water has a magical effect on autistic children. It calls to them like a siren's song. I found this out...."

This is not your standard cliched ex-cop whose life is on a downward slope; he's got good parts of his life (his relationship with his daughter) and some not so good (his relationship with his estranged wife). Throughout the story, Jack tries to reclaim his life. Sometimes it works and sometimes, well the typical "Hollywood story-telling" does not appear, making his frustrations and experiences much more real (like when Jack tries to buy his old house).

The story is fantastically paced, the writing is well done, and the unique twists will definitely catch you a bit off guard. Just an excellent, suspenseful mystery, and extremely well worth your time.

I'd not read any of James Swain's books before this; now I'll be reading them all.