Customer Reviews

Night Sins (Deer Lake)

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(18)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

Eight year old Josh Kirkwood is abducted outside the hockey arena where he has finished practice. Only one clue is left in the form of a note regarding ignorance and sin. Josh's parents, Dr. Hannah Garrison and Paul Kirkwood are beside themselves. Enter Megan O'Malley, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Investigator and Mitch Holt, Chief of Police for the town of Deer Lake, Minnesota. They set out to investigate Josh's disappearance but don't have much to go on. The kidnapper leaves two more clues in the form of short religiously oriented notes but there still is not much direction. The town responds by setting up search parties and telephone volunteers. But it's not easy. Slowly some suspects come into the picture, yet, they seem to disappear as quickly as they arrive. Tami Hoag does a fine job in building this first of a two part story regarding child abduction and the challenges it presents to law enforcement. While the ending is very hopeful, the reader needs to go on to Guilty As Sin for the full story. Night Sins and Guilty As Sin provide the reader with an excellent story that you can sink your teeth into. It's nice that Hoag didn't choose to simply wrap up a complex story in the last chapter. Further layers unfold in this fascinating story in volume two. Well worth the time and effort.

I've heard a lot about Tami Hoag, so I thought I would give one of her books a shot. Hoag started as a romance writer, and was one of the very first romance writers to make the jump to mainstream suspense. NIGHT SINS, released in 1995, was her first major mainstream suspense book. The book became a major bestseller and later became a TV miniseries starring Valerie Bertenelli.

I must admit that I really didn't care for this book at all. It's a very slow paced novel, nearly 600 pages long. There's a lot of romantic material in this book, including a rather silly relationship between two law enforcement officers (the female officer desperately wants to be taken seriously as a detective, but then sleeps with her male superior within days of arriving in the small town!)

If you read a lot of thrillers, there is very little in this book that is new or fresh. In the end, I was more bored than thrilled. Personally, I prefer the faster-paced novels of Alex Kava, Sandra Brown, or the JD Robb books.

My first and last Hoag novel. After 540 pages you finish up with Zero. Perhaps the author could not come up with answers to the questions she poses so she just types "The End", leaving the reader without a clue as to why the novel was ever started.

Here's my summary. Page 1 - boy kidnapped - Page 540 - boy knocks on the door. Hi Mom I'm home. In between Zip.

This is my first and definately last Tami Hoag book. Most of the characters were annoying and vulgar and should use have their mouths washed out with soap. The identity of the villain was predictable and the final fate of the kidnapped child seemed rather unlikely. If you are looking for a cheap Harlequin type novel disguised as a thriller, this book is for you. If you want a better quality book, I'd advise you to save your money and skip this book. If I could give this book less than 1 star I would.

Eight-year-old Josh Kirkwood is abducted outside the hockey arena where he has finished practice. Only one clue is left, a note that talks of ignorance and sin. Josh's parents, Dr. Hannah Garrison and Paul Kirkwood are inconsolable. Dr. Hannah Garrison was to have picked Josh up after hockey but she was detained at the hospital due to an emergency.

Megan O'Malley, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Investigator and Mitch Holt, Chief of Police for the town of Deer Lake, Minnesota set out to investigate Josh's disappearance. The kidnapper leaves two more clues but there's no break in the case.

Tami Hoag does a fine job in building this first of a two-part story. Go on to Guilty As Sin for the full story. Night Sins and Guilty As Sin together make an excellent story that you won't want to put down.

This is the most difficult read I've tried in years. Maybe Harlequin fans could enjoy the forced situations, predictable characters, and endless mindless horniness of this book. Please put Fabio on the cover to steer people who like plots and sensible stories away.

Someone told me that if I liked Grafton and Cornwell and Fairstein that I'd love Hoag. No way, Hoag is a romance writer - not a story teller.

Frequently the story takes mindless turns, leaving the reader confused. The confusion clears when you realize the device was set to get a couple of principals into coupling position.

Hoag has an original idea here. If characters are plain, or old, or physically flawed they are bad. If they are young and physically attractive they are good. Very clever. I identified the first of the bad guys when he was introduced. The character's existence made no sense, what he had to offer made no sense, and he was very homely. Although introduced as a caring person I guessed he just had to be a baddy with those looks, he was.

The main male character is introduced "bulge" first in an incredibly contrived scene, your typical police chief in tights. Within a few chapters our agent lady finds herself "melting against him, on fire." Need I say Give Me A Break? Better yet, give me Kinsey Millhone.

I wanted to like this book. I read it in one sitting, guessing at who the mysterious culprit might be. Was annoyed that one crucial key was not investigated for most the book, but that was pretty small. Megan was a little too wound up-- most the characters were ridiculously tied to their horrible pasts. Hoag's romance roots were evident in this book-- but it wasn't quite distasteful in the lines of the story, thankfully.

Would have been satisfied if the epilogue didn't exist.

WTF. I wasn't too surprised by the use of "we" during the journal entries and such. Okay, so he's a madman. Wouldn't be the first. MPD isn't too common-- but schizophrenia is. However, the book insists there is more accomplices out there, and look-- what do we have a group?

I wouldn't have minded that if it all had been in a book. Tell your story, woman! I don't want to read 541 pages to discover that the story isn't even half told. I checked, and there's a sequal, Guilty as Sin.... and well I liked reading this book for what's that worth, it is not nearly good enough for me to buy and read another book for the story I've already paid for. Some authors can pull off the balance leaving loose ends to allow for a sequel and keeping the reader interested enough, but this author, at least in this book, does not.

As far as plot movement is concerned, the 650 pages contain within them a 150-page story. The rest consists of enough filler to make Charles Dickens blush-- too bad Hoag is no Dickens. Be prepared to slog through 1200 pages, because the mystery herein is not revealed until at least the end of the sequel, Guilty As Sin-- but then again if mystery is what you are looking for you can stop reading now.

This is a really a rather repetitive, unrealistic romance. I've read (or, to be more clear, skimmed) several Hoag books and the formula she hashes out in work over work: Tough career woman gets beat down, realizes her dreams of career were hollow, turns crying to her alpha male and accepts role as happy housewife.

650 pages. Yawn.

This isn't Tami Hoag's greatest novel by a long-shot. I didn't hate it like I did Dust to Dust but I didn't love it like I do Ashes to Ashes or Cry Wolf. One thing I've noticed about Hoag's work is that the mystery AND the romance often take backseat to every characters' sad memories, traumatic life expirences, and sordid pasts. No book quite highlights Hoag's tendency to weave angst and depression into a massive tapestry of despair quite like Night Sins.
In Night Sins, a young boy is abducted after hockey practice. His mother was busy preforming emergency surgery, and his father was busy screwing the neighbor's wife. These two characters spend a lot of time being guilty and angsty. Heading the search for Josh are Megan O'Malley, a female field agent from the BCA with a chip on her shoulders and daddy-issues, and Mitch Holt, a police chief whose very depressed about the death of his wife and son. These two characters also spend a lot of time being guilty and angsty. Who could have done such a thing in the perfect, perfect town of Deer Lake?
I'll get to the book's biggest flaw first. It's ending is very, very poor. Nothing is really resolved. Sure, the kidnapper is caught but we are given no indepth insight into why he did it, but the ending does make it clear that there is one or more accomplices still on the lose. After spending many hours reading over 500 pages I feel cheated. I think that Hoag probably could have shortened this novel by about 200 pages if she took out some of the angst. Then maybe I wouldn't feel so cheated. I also would recommend the abridged audio book version of Night Sins because it prunes out a lot of the endless angst.
Like I said before, the angst eclipses the investigation into Josh's abduction. There were times when I seriously questioned Mitch's ability to be police chief early in the novel. He was very very insistant that this COULD NOT be a case of kidnapping because crime doesn't exsist in perfect, perfect Deer Lake. He was also very hesistant to question any of the locals even though they did some things that made them look highly suspicious. I mean Megan was the only one who really seemed serious about the case half the time. It seemed like every time she tried to prusue a possible lead, Mitch would try to stonewall her. I felt really sorry for Megan. It seemed like everybody was trying to undermine her all the time. From Mitch, to the sherriff that was feeding critical info to the press, to a nosy reporter out to make things difficult, Megan couldn't make any sort of move with out being criticized dispite the fact that she was the only one trying to crack the case.
On reflection, very little happens during the investigation. Just about every gain the police make is because the kidnappers want them to have this piece of evidence or that piece of evidence.
Despite my criticism, I still enjoyed Night Sins. Not the best book ever, but this two parter isn't the worst capitalistic grab by an author I've ever seen. That honor goes to Laurell K. Hamilton for trying to pass off an teaser from her crummy Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter Novels as a short story not once but twice.

Throughout the book Night Sins, Hoag manages to keep the reader guessing to a fairly decent degree. However, when all is said and done, or, in other words, the last chapter of the book, she lets the reader down with a resounding thud. There is no real resolution, only a phony, half-baked resolution that leaves you wondering why you bothered to read the book. If Hoag's other books are anything like this one, then I guess it is good that until now I had never read any of them. I doubt I will be reading any more.