Perils of the Night [Hardcover]

Patricia Hall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1999

Laura goes undercover to write about prostitution and ends up arrested for solicitation. Soon after, Michael is called to the scene of a prostitute's brutal stabbing yards from the corner Laura had walked.

The pair's often intersecting jobs test their relationship -- and endanger their lives -- as they search for a killer.

Hall delivers a taut procedural rich with the engaging characters and clever plot that have become her trademark.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Reporter Laura Ackroyd (The Dead of Winter, 1997, etc.) goes undercover on a dangerous assignment in Hall's latest suspenseful police procedural. Residents of the city of Bradfield in Yorkshire are turning vigilante to run prostitutes off the streets. Convinced by her editor that posing as a hooker will provide good cover to get the story, Laura fakes going on the stroll. She is arrested for solicitation, however, and learns later that a young woman, a seemingly innocent university student, has been brutally murdered on the very street where Laura was posing. Laura's lover, Chief Inspector Michael Thackeray, is in charge of the investigation. As he proceeds with the inquiry, he discovers that the murdered student, Louise Brownlow, may have been hooking on the side in order to pay her way through the university. The case complicates in unexpected ways, but in time Laura and Michael arrive at the truth behind the killing. This is yet another darkly compelling mystery from Hall, memorable particularly for its well-detailed setting, intelligent, vital lead characters and dark-hued plotting.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Sometime lovers Laura Ackroyd, reporter, and Michael Thackeray, police inspector, find their relationship challenged by murder. Michael must investigate the murder of a prostitute killed very near the spot where Laura, researching an article, worked undercover?as a prostitute. An excellent British procedural from the author of The Dead of Winter (LJ 1/97).
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 220 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press (January 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312199961
• ISBN-13: 978-0312199968
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,172,289 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Patricia Hall remembers telling stories to her little sisters when she was six years old, and by the time she was in her early teens she was sure that she was going to be a writer one day. She gained a a degree in English before becoming a journalist and working for The Guardian and the BBC in London, amongst others.
On 1991 her first crime novel, The Poison Pool, was published in London and New York and this was followed by a book a year. Most feature her feisty heroine, reporter Laura Ackroyd and her on-off lover DCI Michael Thackeray. They are set in the decaying industrial towns of West Yorkshire and the nearby countryside of the Yorkshire Dales. In 2011 she launched a new series with Dead Beat, casting a sceptical eye on "Swinging London" in the 1960s. The sequel, Death Trap, will be published in 2012.
Patricia is married and now lives in Oxford. She has two grown up sons and a grand-daughter.
Visit Patricia's web-site at www.patriciahall.co.uk

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good series..., March 11, 2001

By 

Dianne Foster "Di" (USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Perils of the Night (Hardcover)

PERILS OF THE NIGHT by Patricia Hall continues the exploits of Laura Ackroyd, copper-haired news reporter, and Michael Thackery, policeman with a past. Laura and Michael are a compelling couple--both very likeable and not overly cute. I belive PERILS is the fourth book in Hall's series on this pair and I hope she writes dozens more. Laura and Michael met in DEATH BY ELECTION which is particularly well written, and salient given recent election politics in the U.S.. The couple become better acquainted in DYING FALL, closer in DEAD OF WINTER and are working together again in PERILS.

Laura is an excellent reporter, fighting to establish herself in a man's world which means getting assignments off the feature page and on the front page. Michael worries that Laura's skills may someday encourage the London papers to entice her away from Yorkshire. But Laura has a grandmother living in Bradford with whom she is very close, so she's not likely to take off soon.

Sometimes Laura's investigative reporting efforts lead to conflicts with Michael, a relative newcomer on the local police force, who is trying to establish credibility with his new employers. Both Laura and Michael seem mature enough to deal with the job-related conflicts that can affect their personal relationship, but from time to time tempers flare.

Hall's plot device in PERILS is interesting--both main characters frequently turn up at the same job location because something of interest to both the newspaper and the local police occurs. In PERILS both become involved in the murder of a college student who turned tricks on the side before one of her clients apparently killed her. Laura had been developing an undercover piece on the exploitation of women prostitutes before the murder. Michael becomes involved when murder and prostitution intersect.

This is a short book--220 pages and can be read in one sitting, but it's rich and filling as a chocolate eclair.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb Ackroyd-Thackeray British police procedural, January 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Perils of the Night (Hardcover)

Bradford Gazette Editor Ted Grant assigns reporter Laura Ackroyd int obtaining insider information on the feud between the town's prostitutes and its new Asian residents. Laura dresses as a prostitute and begins by seemingly soliciting customers on the Yorkshire streets. She gathers interesting information from Sherry the prostitute just prior to being busted by the police.

Laura feels a bit mortified that her lover police chief Michael Thackeray sees her in her new role behind bars. However, her investigative juices quickly replace that queasy feeling when she learns that someone murdered a university student Louise Brownlee on her street corner that very night. Michael and Laura seek the truth behind the student-hooker murder, which may have been an act of a vigilante, an unhappy customer, or just a mindless murder.

What sets aside a Patricia Hall novel from the run of the mill English police procedural is the detail and depth to the characterizations. Though her who-done-its are well written, they are no better than most of the sub-genre entries. However, the brilliantly defined emotions, motivations, and interpersonal relationships propel the audience into non-stop reading until they finish the novel. This trademark of Ms. Hall is in abundance in her latest mystery, PERILS OF THE NIGHT. After perusing this novel, readers will want to obtain Ms. Hall's previous tales such as the Thackeray-Ackroyd tale, DEAD OF WINTER, which too is an entertaining story.

Harriet Klausner

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, May 23, 2009

By 

Steve & Pat Kutay - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perils of the Night (Hardcover)

I have read around 6 of the Ackroyd-Thackeray series and, up until this one, have enjoyed them all. Perils of the Night was a slog and I should have given it up half-way through. I can only feel the writer was having an off-day or was carried away by the subject matter so that she got somewhat preachy and forgot about writing a good mystery. Still, everything else I have read by her has been terrific.