Night Night, Sleep Tight

This was a fun read. Using the 1958 murder of Jonny Stompanato by Lana Turner's daughter, Hallie Ephron weaves an old fashioned tale of old Hollywood and murder.

An essentially worthless, but easy read, without suspense or thrills that has you wading hip deep in dropped names. If you like your Hollywood fringes dirty, dip them here.

How could coming home to help your father get the house ready to sell turn into such a nightmare?

Deirdre dutifully said she would help her father with the house, but when she arrived, she found him at the bottom of the swimming pool. When did this happen? Who could have done this? Could she have done it and not realized it considering her past that she was just finding out about?

NIGHT, NIGHT SLEEP TIGHT was quite gripping and marvelously suspenseful. All of the things that were happening made me wonder if they were really by chance or if someone had planned them to frame Deirdre. After all, Deirdre's brother was sound asleep in their childhood home when she arrived. And what was it with folks from her past coming out of the woodwork and show more secrets about what actually happened the night of her car accident being revealed?

The characters were quite colorful with most of them on the untrustworthy side. They all seemed likely suspects in the murder and subsequently the garage fire. Deirdre seemed to be the only honest one and the one being blamed.

I really enjoyed NIGHT, NIGHT SLEEP TIGHT. The suspense began with the first few paragraphs, and it didn't stop.

NIGHT, NIGHT SLEEP TIGHT was a mystery and character analysis all rolled into one.

If you enjoy uncertainty, excitement, and tension at its finest, don't miss reading NIGHT, NIGHT SLEEP TIGHT.

NIGHT, NIGHT SLEEP TIGHT was ohhh so good and a book I couldn't wait to get back to. 5/5

This book was given to me free of charge and without compensation by the publisher in return for an honest review. show less

This was a decent mystery set in the Hollywood of the 80s. The plot had weird twists and turns, but they were totally appropriate for the decadence of the time period. The ending was not what I have wanted, but, again, it made perfect sense to the story. I enjoyed it very much.

This is a pretty mundane mystery whose protagonist is Deidre Unger, a child of the Beverly Hills movie crowd, now living in San Diego. She returns home to find her screenwriter father drowned in his pool. The mystery develops around whether or not the death was accidental or foul play. The backstory seems to be based loosely on the actual murder of Johnny Stompanato by Cheryl Crane, the daughter of actress Lana Turner. Diedre is somehow involved in a similar murder and also may be implicated in her father’s death. She conveniently finds her father’s unfinished memoir that raises questions about the previous murder. Ephron includes some interesting twists but in general the plot seemed melodramatic and lacking in nuance. The cast of show more characters was flat and stereotypical (narcissistic movie actress, brutal boyfriend, faithful childhood friend, self-involved brother, devious Hollywood lawyer, childhood neighbor boy who conveniently is now an arson investigator with all kinds of investigative expertise, and new-age mother). Deirdre was permanently injured in an automobile accident and now uses a crutch. This plot element often seemed unrealistic as she jumped in and out of cars and climbed down steep embankments. A budding romance between a disabled woman and her childhood neighbor was a missed opportunity that ultimately was not handled well enough to be believable. show less