Out of the Night – review

Author – Dan Latus

Publisher – Joffe Books

Date – 2019 (Kindle edition, originally 2012 in print)

Length – 172 pages

Stars – 3/5

Blurb

Three mutilated bodies wash up on a beach along the Cleveland coast. The local policeman, Bill Peart enlists the help of Frank Doy, private security consultant.

A woman appears on Doy’s doorstep in the dead of night. Naked, shivering and barely able to speak. He takes her in for food and rest, but in the morning she has disappeared without a trace. Then two extremely unwelcome visitors show up demanding answers. The mystery woman was being followed.

WHO IS THE WOMAN WHO EMERGED OUT OF THE NIGHT?

Doy begins a tireless search for the woman who sought his help. He is sure there is a connection with the disembodied corpses.

A foreign yacht docked near the entrance to a cliffside tunnel and a secretive new arts centre add to the deepening mystery.

The search for one nameless woman leads Doy to a huge underground enterprise that threatens national security and will stop at nothing to achieve their ends.

HOW LONG BEFORE ANOTHER BODY IS FOUND?

Perfect for fans of Lee Child, Matt Hilton, Robert Galbraith and Michael Grant.

Review

I am a sucker for the Kindle “what you may like” function and this was, indeed, the main reason for starting this blog – to get me to read books out of my usual genre and not picked by a computer algorithm.

Nevertheless, “Out of the Night” was an okay read.  I find it hard to give it too much of a hard time but if only the book continued with the pace and excitement it started with.  The book opens with the discovery of three mutilated bodies on the beach in a rural North-Eastern England location.  Frank Doy, a security consultant come ad-hoc detective, is greeted by a naked woman at his front door in the proceeding days.  She doesn’t give him any information but he looks after her and she stays the night.  When Doy wakes in the morning, she has disappeared and it is only when he notices the contents of his fridge diminishing unusually quickly that he finds she is living rough close-by and sneaking in his house when he is gone.  In the meantime, he has been consulted for security advice at Meridian House which is a centre location due to become a new art gallery.  These two stories intertwine as it becomes clearer that this woman is being pursued and her life is in grave danger.  The plot leads back to Meridian House where there is, of course, more going on than the purveying of art. 

What I liked especially

There are plenty of twists and turns and I think, for the first half of the book, Latus keeps the reader gripped very well.  The discovery of the bodies and the arrival of the female protagonist is written superbly and I felt like I couldn’t tell what was coming but could keep up with the story.  For the first few nights, this book genuinely kept me up late as I was eager to finish a chapter or start the next.

What I didn’t like

Unfortunately, the pace died down somewhat midway and the twist regarding the woman on the run and the goings-on at Meridian House just didn’t quite add up for me.   I feel like the book could have been just as good, if not better, if the final twist (SPOLIER ALERT) didn’t make our lady and her captive collaborator a Russian spy, it just completely sidelined me.  I’m not sure what others felt, or whether I have missed something important earlier in the story (although generally-speaking if a book is good enough, the reader won’t be asking themselves if they have missed something, I don’t like to leave a review if I feel I haven’t tried my best to understand the story).

Overall

This is the second in a trilogy of Frank Day novels, which I didn’t realise when it came up as a recommended read for me.  Without knowing about the characters previous shenanigans, I still found him a likely protagonist and I could certainly get on board with more stories he features in.  Overall, the book is well-written, starts well and ends not quite as well and is relatively short meaning the suspense-filled beginning can carry the disappointing ending fairly well.  Probably a good holiday or airplane read where you can read it all in one sitting and not lose pace.