Customer Reviews

Out at Night (Grace Descanso Novel)

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Grace Descanso is on vacation with her daughter when she gets the message to report to the FBI. Since Grace is a crime scene technician for San Diego, she doesn't feel the immediate need to answer the summons and disrupt the quality time she's having with her daughter - especially since Grace is feeling threatened by the developing relationship between said daughter and her father, to whom she'd recently been introduced (prior book). Grace winds up leaving the two together in paradise to return to the States to find out why Professor Thaddeus Bartholomew - a name she dimly recognizes - texted her name in his final moments before he was skewered with a crossbow and then set ablaze in a field of organic grain.

Grace returns to San Diego to check on her dog, Helix, before heading back out, and stops to see Jeanne, her sponsor. Jeanne's tattooing a young girl while they talk, and here is where it would seem the web begins to spin - Jeanne knows Bartholomew and saw him shortly before he died. Another issue is that Jeanne's boyfriend, Frank, genetically modifies crops, and was putting together an international agricultural convention for it, and Bartholomew was raising Cain because of it. So before she even reports in to the FBI, Grace has started following up leads and clues to a case that is way beyond what a crime scene technician should pursue - and all this is before she even sees her Uncle Pete - aka Special Agent Descanso - and flashes back to a lifetime ago.

Grace was called in to the case because she knows about DNA. DNA isn't just for people anymore - plants have it, as well, and it can also be modified. GM stands for genetically modified - and this can have positive and negative effects. One of Grace's recent lectures had been on racial profiling using DNA, and the FBI wanted her to use this knowledge in their case - and not just because Bartholomew had all but physically assaulted her when she gave this lecture. Grace must follow the clues of DNA from field to field and from fellow to fellow - starting from scratch so that all of her information is fresh and untainted - and call upon knowledge stored in hidden recesses where Grace would rather it remain untouched. And all of this is happening while she is reuniting with her long-estranged family - Uncle Pete and his daughter, Vonda, who is heavily pregnant and part of the group protesting the GM movement.

This is a very complex suspense novel, with a lot of procedure in it. Be prepared to follow a lot of characters but not with a lot of deep character development, not even for the protagonist. I didn't find it particularly gory and there was a tad of romance, but not enough of any one thing in this book to keep me coming back to this author.

In Palm Springs, California, at an international agricultural symposium, protesters peacefully march against genetically modified crops. That is no violence until someone shoots an arrow into the chest of Professor Thaddeus Bartholomew. The assailant quickly follows up, while people watch in horror, by pouring gasoline on the professor and igniting it with a match; but before his death Thaddeus sends a text message: "FIND GRACE DESCANSO."

The FBI suspects the violent group Radical Damage killed the professor to cast a dark shadow on the conference and most likely to plan an even more ferocious assault during the closing ceremony. Grace a San Diego police crime lab technician is yanked back from her vacation with her daughter by her FBI Agent Uncle Pete. As the niece works with her uncle investigating the homicide and potential follow-up terrorism, another murder occurs and while the moment of truth draws closer, there remains too many suspects including Grace's pregnant cousin to prevent an expected tragedy.

OUT AT NIGHT, the second Descanso police procedural (see THE TIMER GAME) is an exciting thriller from the moment an expecting to die Bartholomew sends his text message and never slows down until the final confrontation with agricultural terrorists. The gripping story line hooks the audience, but never quite explains why the professor picked Descanso and waits until the latter half of the tale to provide the actual terrorist threat and the rationale. Still fans will enjoy this enjoyable family affair.

Harriet Klausner

Crime scene technician Grace Descanso is on vacation with her daughter and her daughter's long-lost father when she gets a call from her uncle in the FBI summoning her to help investigate a murder. It seems that the victim had texted her as his dying act. Although she's nervous about allowing her daughter to spend time with the father, Grace abandons the young girl and heads to California where a conference on genetically modified plants is under way.

Grace soon runs into a group of militant women who push the organic message and who have all been having miscarriages. With Grace's niece nearly at full-term, the anger and frustration among the other women runs high. Also running high is the threat of some sort of terrorist strike against the conference. Many, including those supporting organic farming, believe bioengineered food is a serious danger.

Grace may have responded to her uncle's call but that doesn't mean she likes him. There is a lot of family history here and Grace is angry with just about everyone. It doesn't take too long before the one person in the world Grace trusts, her AA sponsor, proves to be a liar as well and Grace truly feels alone in the world.

Author Susan Arnout Smith gives us a lot to like in this story. Genetically modified foodstuffs and the controversy over them are definitely today's-headline stuff. Despite our nation's focus on terrorists from abroad, there is still a very real threat of domestic terrorists...people who can easily blend in with the general population, making them a far greater threat. For me, though, there was just too much going on. Grace comes off as unlikable...she dumps her daughter with a man she doesn't really trust, dumps off her dog, is pissy with her uncle, and eventually becomes angry with her sponsor as well. Then there are the terrorist threats. It's not enough that someone is trying to poison the conference-goers with anthrax, there's also the deeper bio-engineered threat. And then there's Grace, who seems to be the epicenter of everything despite an FBI office which is, supposedly, looking into the whole thing.

Despite its promise, I found OUT AT NIGHT a bit too hard to buy into.

Out at Night by Susan Arnout Smith

This is the second book in the Grace Descanso series. Grace is a CSI technician which is not initially clear but becomes more so as the book progresses. The plot could be pulled out of national headlines. The detective work surrounds an agricultural conference focusing on gene altered food.

Frankenfood has moved into the common vernacular. Fear surrounding gene altered food and the possible environmental impact provides the motivation for the plot. The book is the second in a series and I feel a brief recap would have help ground the story. The book starts with a heinous crime and then jumps to a paranoid's idyllic vacation. It is a good story but more initial background on what makes Grace tick would have been nice. The story sometimes is hard to follow but it is a solid mystery.

I recommend the book.

I found this book to be very fast-paced with a lot of heart. Grace Descanso, the lead character, not only is smart, she's funny and a single mom to boot. With lots of interesting characters and a good story line, this book is a great read.

I loved this novel. Susan Smith's first novel "The Timer Game" introduced Grace Descanso as a protagonist we could all relate to, a gamey good guy with an edgy past, but it's Smith's voice that makes it worthwhile to shell out the price of a hardback book. This woman can write. She's got more talent in her thumb than the thriller genre deserves. She really ought to be writing for a broader readership.

As a forensic scientist in Southern California, I had to read this one.

The mystery is mysterious, the characters have character, and I can find no fault in the story line. I finished it in just a couple of days and quite enjoyed it.

The reason for the title of this review is that finally someone wrote a book about crime scene investigation that is realistic. The procedures are real, the techniques are real, there's no "blue-light CSI high heels and halter top" nonsense. The author has obviously done some research into how things are done.

I own the first two Grace Descanso novels and eagerly await the next one.

This is the second in I hope a series of Grace Descanso thrillers that
have well paced action. Love to see Out at Night as a movie. Being a native San Diegan I enjoyed the vivid local color. The plot, driven by science, is compelling and builds with suspense and a maze to the thrilling end.

I ordered this book on 3/29. I didn't receive it until 4/27, a week too late for my book club. I have returned
the book and am hoping to receive notification of a credit. However, I did borrow the book and did read it.
It was a ordinary novel, nothing I would recommend. The story sped along at breakneck speed that sometimes
I couldn't follow but the characters were never developed and I could not get interested in anyone. That is what makes a book interesting to me.