Night Fall by Nelson DeMille is one of the novels in his John Corey series. I have not read the series before and considering how much I loathed this one, I won’t be.
1 out of 10 stars. This novel started out well with the setup of a horrible accident, but it wasn’t really an accident. Therein lies the chase of the heroes to find the villains. What the novel suffers from is too much preaching. The “hero” is a jerk and he can’t help but give his opinion on everything from fat and lazy women to women who don’t keep a clean enough house. :0 Yep, hated him Got to page 275 and threw the book in the trash. Done.
One of the things about writing novels is that some authors, especially in their early work, put too much of themselves into their main characters. This is the case with Nelson DeMille’s John Corey character. He’s a jerk.
The first 250 pages take place in the matter of a few hours on the night of the anniversary of the downing of TWA flight 800 on July 17, 1996. John Corey, a retired NYC detective, now works for the Anti-Terrorist Division of the FBI with his new wife, a petite blonde lawyer half his age named Kate Mayfield. It’s five years after the crash of TWA 800 and the victims’ families meet every year for a reunion, so Kate suddenly takes John along with her and gives her the FBI’s evidence. Then she gives him the secret evidence. That evening, two people who were married but to other people, brought an ice chest with wine and a hotel blanket to the beach across the bay from where the plane exploded. They had sex and videotaped it, accidentally catching the plane exploding behind them on videotape. After the plane exploded, the couple, not wanting to be discovered together, hastily left but forgot the ice chest with wine glasses with their fingerprints as well as the hotel blanket and the videocamera lens cap. Oops.
During the initial investigation, the FBI narrowed the investigation down to the hotel with the missing blanket and the couple with the videotape rather quickly, then suddenly all of the evidence disappeared and Kate was told she was no longer on the case. Now she wants John to investigate at the risk of both their jobs. Ho hum.
John is an old white guy, fat, slovenly, and a real jerk. When meeting an friend who was a cop but is now a pregnant housewife, all he talks about are her dirty children, messy house, and nice rear-end. Yeah, he’s a real prize. His wife Kate is an uptight, cold and selfish lawyer who thinks of her career above all else. She doesn’t cook, clean, or do anything at home except tell John he’s fat and ignore him. But she manages to fit in six hours of fitness training a day and sleeps with her FBI coworkers, usually the real jerks (like her husband). There is nothing likable about either of the two. But I slogged through the first 275 pages anyway, two-thirds of the novel, and nothing happened.
Surprise, surprise, within 24 hours of John beginning to ask questions, they are both shipped off by the FBI to different countries. John is sent to Yemen and Kate is sent to Tanzania, coincidentally Americans are being kidnapped and killed in both countries by terrorists. This is described in two paragraphs, then it’s suddenly two months later. Okay, I’m bored. Done, done, done. I won’t be picking up another Nelson De Mille novel again. I ordered the entire series and tossed them all after this travesty.
1 out of 10 stars. The characters were unlikable. The plot jumps forward, backward, forward again, and then jumps ahead to years later. It’s enough to give you a headache. The author took way too much time to describe details of the event and completely missed that it wasn’t interesting to the reader.
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