Customer Reviews

Nightwork

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

 

 

Nightwork is a witty, engaging, dangerous and fun mystery/chase that trapses all over the globe and keeps you guessing at every corner. Unlike today's murder mysteries, it's anything but formula and you're disappointed when it's all over! I highly recommend this brilliant, fun book.
Sidenote: Not having read any of Irwin Shaw's other works, I have been inspired to start buying his books and see if Nightwork is a standard peice or a departure from his typical writings.

After reading this book you will either venture to read everything Irwin Shaw has ever written or burn your copy of Nightwork.
Welcome to the life of Douglas Grimes, an ex-pilot grounded for his failing eyes moves to New York in search of a new start. He works at the St. Augustine, a run down hotel, and places petty bets on the horses with a second-rate bookmaker. He leads a simple and non-important life.
All this changes when he finds a man lying dead on the six floor of the hotel. After dragging him inside room 602 he finds a tube belonging to the corpse, with 100,000 dollars stuffed inside.
Fleeing America, with the cash, he checks into a ritzy hotel in the Swiss ski resort of St. Moritz. Unpacking with visions of travelling Rome and London he finds, to his horror, he has accidentally swapped his bag at the airport, and has lost the money. Grimes finds himself both the hunter and the hunted with the rightful owners of the 100,000 hot on his trail.
The reader and Grimes will travel Europe in search of lost fortunes and great wealth guided by Miles Fabian, a slick con-artist. Plenty of sex, champagne and caviar...
Although highly entertaining to read, this book falls short of full satisfaction. I couldn't help but think of a hundred different endings that would have made it better. Having said that I strongly recommend this book on entertainment value alone.

I read this book about 30 years ago. Although some things are simplified, that's what I want from life. Classy ladies, old fashioned hotels, quick money,....

If I ever modeled myself on anybody, it's Miles Fabian (only I don't gamble).

Long Live My Fiction Hero !

I read this book in 1991, and have finished it again tonight
If books are friends, than this is one of my best friends
Set in 1973, it fails to be dated and the realistic human interplay between the protaganists, when far fetched, is a delight to read..

Douglas Grimes and Miles Fabien make an unlikely pair, but the chemistry is carefully placed by the Author. As they make their fortune around Europe, many entertaining cameos are developed..
The corrupt German Art dealer
The Building Contractor who drops dead on payday
The unhappy wife who buys her lovers a large watch each season
And classic description such as...

"He had an old commuter's face. The kind of face you see, weathered by years of anxiety and stale indoor air, that you see on men standing on windy station platforms on dark winter mornings, patient as donkeys and weary long before the days work ever begins"


The story falls off sharply as soon as Grimes love interest appears from America, then it loses it's punch and seems to be winding down inevitably

Still the nicest of books

This novel is the anthem for a luck . The hidden hopes, that every man lulls in the furthest nooks of his soul, suddenly comes true and luck keeps on till the moment when a man realizes that to rely upon it forever is senseless and simply dangerous and starts building up his future using opportunities as bricks, building up a wall against unexpected storms and if he successes then he fills secure, that is an illusion; in general, everything is illusion, besides true feelings. Money is on one plate of the scale and love on the other. Love overweighs, at least, in this novel, pity, that money, almost always, overtakes in live...Brilliant, overwhelming novel, that arises some hopes...

This book was only worthy of one star because I do not wish to glamorize my life.
Basically this novel was an undocumentary documentary of my life, except I never recieved any royalities and I've never been to New York, hence the stench of B.S. in the aire.
The first time I read this book grudgingly because I needed something to read while I ate breakfast; I never put it down.
Currently my novel is in a drastic state of much needed repair because it's scattered in 3 seperate pieces, and the cover? I have no idea, because I've read it so much.
I need another one, but this book is definitely a first as in first rate! I'll never again get that sense of awe but the memory and feeling of displacement will always be there.