Customer Reviews

Nighttime is My Time

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(31)
2 star:		(22)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

She would prefer to ignore the invitation to return to Stonecraft Academy for her class' twentieth anniversary reunion, but renowned historian Jean Sheridan is one of six recipients being honored at the gala for their accomplishments. Still the award would not have propelled Jean to return to the academy, but posthumously honoring another winner is the reason for the author to drive to Croton on the Hudson to attend the festivities.

At the hotel, Jean receives a fax that follows up on a package sent to her that contains evidence that someone kidnapped her teenage child, who she gave up for adoption at birth. She is further stunned when attendee Laura Wilcox followed by Robby Brent vanish. When Laura calls to confess that she sent the fax and wants to meet Jean, the historian has no idea the danger she will be stepping into. The serial killer the Owl has made a home at Stonecraft Academy and Jean would be a prize addition to the victim list of at least five from the class of two decades ago.

Though the plot seems anemic in spite of a serial killer and the abduction, the suspense is at its usual stratospheric levels as expected from a Mary Higgins Clark thriller. The story line focuses on the Professor dealing with two crises that interconnect with her. Readers will appreciate the heroism of the reluctant female champion as she grits her teeth and goes forth to do battle against an unknown enemy who might be abetted by a peer betrayer. Ms. Clark shows why she is amongst the top echelon of psychological suspense authors with this taut tale.

Harriet Klausner

My, my, the Queen of Suspense certainly is slipping. I had the opportunity to read two of Ms. Clark's novels within a span of 15 days - "Two little girls in Blue" and "Nighttime is my time". Both of them were huge disappointments, although they helped me pass the time during my flights.

Ms. Clark had built her reputation and earned my interest in her earlier books by creating in each novel, a strong and slightly unique plot, characters who all subtly hint at sinister motives, a smart and strong-willed leading woman whose strength of character shines through out the story, a romance gradually made to progress through the plot twists and turns, the goings-on narrated from the unknown perpetrator's point of view and a grand finale where the evil is revealed and the good once and for all vanquishes the evil.

Now for "Nighttime is My Time":
1. It has what passes for a plot - a former tormented student killing off his/ her tormentors one by one at a high school reunion. Wow, never in a million years would I have imagined that plot for a mystery novel.
2. In an effort to keep us guessing, Ms. Clark has all characters at the reunion hint, nay, shout their sinister motives from roof-tops throughout the pages of the novel. The reason for this, I can't help but think, is because Ms. Clark hadn't decided until the last chapter whom the killer was going to be and to cover her bases built up everyone to be one... you know, just in case.
3. All that Ms. Clark lets the readers know of the leading lady is that she comes from a broken home, had given up a baby for adoption after high school, and now is a successful writer who is very very sad and always sad, never happy, in tears at times... in fact, I can't remember a single page where she was happy and smiling and sure about herself and her success except perhaps in the last two pages. Really Ms. Clark, you can't think of one single reason why this woman should be happy now - she made the toughest decision any woman can make at the most difficult point in her life and has succeeded despite or because of it, and all she can feel is sadness?
4. The premise for romance is very feeble and is limited to two cups of tea, two club sandwiches and some 5 minutes of soul-baring amid swirling doubts of "is he or isn't he" ...the killer, that is.
5. Now the narration from the owl's point of view is what dominates the novel and gets pretty tiresome pretty fast. A lot of pages devoted to convey absolutely nothing. I recommend skipping these pages. Another confirmation of my nagging suspicion that Ms. Clark hadn't decided on the identity of the killer yet.
6. The grand finale is over in a rush and the only information I was eager to get to was whom had Ms. Clark decided to be the killer, in that instant she started writing the paragraph that reveals him.

All in all, I would say the re-runs of "Murder, She Wrote" and "Matlock" easily trump the last two novels I read of Ms. Clark's.

Mary Higgins Clark takes us to the twenty-year reunion of what must have been the unhappiest high school ever. Six members of the class are being honored, and you would be hard-pressed to find another group of such obvious malcontents. However, amongst the honorees is renowned historian Jean Sheridan who harbors the secret of having given up her out-of-wedlock child for adoption. Now, not only Jean, but her child and everyone who shared her lunch table is systematically being eliminated by a disturbed fellow student who identifies himself as "the Owl" because nighttime is his time.

This is a look into the mind of a psychopathic serial killer and the lasting effects of childhood bullying. Interestingly enough, all the men being honored were bullied as high schoolers, but all have become successful in their chosen fields. However, those long-ago scars cause serious repercussions that erupt at the reunion.

My main complaint with this book is there are too many characters to keep track of. The four men being honored are barely distinguishable one from the other and it is virtually anitclimatic when the killer is finally exposed.

On the other hand, the suspense you expect from Mary Higgins Clark is present as well as two sub-plots involving romance.

If you are already a fan of her work, this one will not disappoint.

I agree that too many characters are introduced all at once, but I was able to tell them apart. The plot seemed interesting, with many possibilities. Half way through, when I still hadn't picked who "The Owl" was, I was beginning to believe I'd found a great novel. But, bit by bit, the novel started to go downhill. My biggest complaint was with the main character herself, Jean Sheridan. Not to mince words, but she was an idiot! The killer could do any old thing and she'd believe it. The most gullible protagonist I've ever come across in mystery fiction. The near-retirement cop was also quite dense. When the only character to make any headway in the investigation is a sixteen-year-old, you know you're in trouble. And, as is the case for any lazy mystery writer, you can usually tell that the killer is going to be the character who has least been the subject of the book's numerous red herrings.

Mary Higgins Clark can keep you reading, but she needs to stop underestimating her audience. I'm sure most people would prefer a well-crafted, suspenseful tale as opposed to a meandering story with a Scooby-Doo surprise ending.

Six successful alumni are being honored at Stonecroft Academy's 20th reunion, and one of them is a cold-blooded serial killer known only as "The Owl". His motives are clear; he seeks revenge on seven former female classmates who ridiculed him unmercifully during his teen years. There are only two still alive; Laura Wilcox, a flirtatious Hollywood actress who has seen better times, and Jean Sheridan, best-selling author, historian and college dean. No one has any idea that these two women are his latest targets. Meanwhile, someone is sending eerie faxes to Jean regarding her daughter Lily, whom she secretly gave up for adoption almost twenty years ago. She feels Lily is in grave danger, but has no way of warning her. As Jean beings a race against the clock to find her daughter's true identity, she is unknowingly being hunted by a former classmate; a ruthless killer who wants her dead by the end of the weekend.

Mary Higgins Clark has an amazing talent for creating spine-tingling nightmares just under the surface of everyday life. A high school reunion is one of those episodes of life most of us would just as soon want to forget. Reading this novel may make you think twice about how those old school days jokes can come back to haunt you. I like the style of this book, it's a slick departure from her usual "damsel-in-distress-protagonist" type books, and she creates a riveting psychological storyline that is played out by fascinating characters. My only complaints are minor ones - the editing could have been much better (too many typos) and the number of chapters could have been cut down drastically (96 + an epilogue - ugh!)

Still, this is a not-to-be-missed novel by the reigning queen of psychological suspense.

Enjoy!

Cris Cunningham

I've been in a dry spell in the past month trying to get involved in a book and this one cured me - I found it extremely gripping, fun and impossible to put down.

When I started, my attempt to keep track of the main characters (and in particular the five male suspects) was just impossible. I finally took out a piece of paper and started taking notes in a matrix form - on everything including height, appearance, occupation, place of residence, nicknames, etc. This made the book much more fun to read. And the author really pulls no punches - she provided no inauthentic or inconsistent information meaning that you can ultimately deduce the identity of the killer. Without this matrix of suspects, however, I know I would have been lost and probably would have found it impossible to follow and thus difficult to enjoy.

This is definitely not one of Mary Higgins Clark's best. The book begins with Jean Sheridan heading to upstate New York to receive honors, along with six others. But when one dies and one disappears, it soon comes forward that one of the honorees is hiding a shameful secret - that he is a killer known as The Owl. The Owl, so named because of a humiliating grade school performance in which he stuttered his line about owls and wet his pants, is seeking vengeance on the popular group of students who made his school years miserable. Jean, who is hiding her own secrets about her past, must protect someone close to her who may be in danger.

If this sounds thrilling, well it isn't. The five suspects - Carter, Gordon, Jack, Mark, and Robby - are interchangeable. All were nerds picked on by the popular kids who have since become popular in their own right, and they all have motives. They're also all pretty much the same person. A gruff widower detective named Sam is on the case, helping Jean wherever she goes. An annoying 16-year-old student, Jake, is also on the case, taking photos and managing to crack the case that has been unsolved for 20 years.

In the end...well not to spoil it, but when I learned the identity of the Owl, I was severely disappointed. Even the reasons for the Owl's murderous rampage are explained away pretty quickly in about three pages, all for the predictable conclusion.

If you like Mary Higgins Clark, well you know what you're going to get here. Some melodrama, some romance, a heroine in peril, the elderly man who tries to save her, and secret shady pasts held by nearly everyone. If you've never read Mary Higgins Clark, try another one of her many books first.

What a disappointment! Although I've read all of Ms. Clark's books, I have noticed the quality diminishing of late. This was the last straw - I couldn't even read it through to the end; I just skipped ahead to the solution because, after slogging through half the book, I realized the rest of it just wasn't going to be worth my time. I wasn't drawn to any of the major players; in fact, the bit players were more interesting!

What's most bothersome about this latest novel is the writing style - repetitive narrative & an unrealistic form of "stream-of-consciousness" to explain the back story and/or personal reactions. NO ONE talks to herself/himself this way! It seems that many of today's "bestseller" authors are being pressured to write a book a year, and that's too quick for some of them, including Mary Higgins Clark.

Don't waste your money or your time on "Nighttime Is My Time". If you must read this, however, borrow it from a library.

Jean Sheridan is returning to her hometown for the twenty-year reunion of alumni of Stonecraft Academy, where she will be honored alongside six other class members. Upon arriving Jean gets a bad feeling about the reunion, especially since a fellow classmate died days before under suspicious circumstances, but she goes through with the party only to have her bad feeling become a reality.

As the party gets under way Jean receives a mysterious fax exposing a secret that she has kept all her adult life. Who could have found out the secret and what do they want? These are the question that plague Jean, but in the middle of this turmoil comes another shock...Laura Wilcox, a fellow classmate and good friend to Jean disappears.

Jean is introduced to Sam Deegan, a detective obsessed with the unsolved murder of a young woman, who may also hold the key to Laura's disappearance, and with his help she can find her friend and put a stop to the threatening letters she is receiving. Before long, another body turns up and Jean and Sam find out this is the work of a twisted individual known as the Owl.

The Owl is on a mission of vengeance against the Stonecraft women who mocked and humiliated him and he won't stop until his last victim has been claimed, that last victim being Jean.

`Nighttime Is My Time' missed the mark on being an exciting read. This novel should have been better than it was, but the introduction of too many characters and over-abundance of scenes that had nothing to do with the story made it boring. Nothing in this book worked for me, the plot twists were unexciting and even the reveal of the killer's identity came with no real surprise, by the time I finished the book I didn't care what happened.

Mary Higgins Clark has written many excellent suspense novels, unfortunately this is not one of them. Suspense has always been a key element in a Clark novel, but this time it was left out for uninteresting character development. In all her years writing best-selling suspense novels, Clark, has only written a few books I didn't like, this being one of them, alongside `Moonlight Becomes Her' which I feel was her worst.

Better luck next time.

Nick Gonnella

If you read the reviews I have written on John Grisham's and James Patterson's latest novels, you can understand why I was thrilled to pick up a mystery novel that has a plot! I have started rejecting books by any well-known author. Publishers force them to crank out several books a year. The end result are books that have the texture of cotton candy.

"Nighttime is My Time" is not Clark's best work, but I will take it any day over the trash other authors have been spewing. The book has enough red herrings to keep you guessing. It is a quick, easy read, as well.

On the other hand, I would have liked to have seen a few more pages. There are so many characters/suspects that you need more time with each one than she provided. They needed fleshing out.

It is a good beach or bubble bath book. Not all books have to be the end all of novels. If you need to relax and mentally get away for awhile, this book will do well.