Nighttime Is My Time

I got really into the TV show American Chopper some years back. I don't have any interest in motorcycles and I couldn't care less about the family drama between the stars of that show. But I loved watching it. I loved watching genuinely skilled people create their visions.

I love watching master craftspeople at work.

There's joy in witnessing that level of skill. This is why I love shows about carpentry, home renovation, car mods, tattooing. It's one of the many reasons why I love music, dance, theater, and athletics. It doesn't matter if any of these interest me personally, I'm fascinated watching people who love doing them. Any human endeavor which requires skill to do well, is worth witnessing.

Reading Nighttime Is My Time by Mary show more Higgins Clark reminds me of watching American Chopper. She crafts her stories. Her control of plot and pacing and structure, how she manipulates the reader to place suspicion on different characters at different times, her myriad misdirections, how she builds the tension. She shows her work and gives us a ring-side seat to her creative process.

I enjoy witnessing her craft.

That being said, Nighttime Is My Time isn't a very good book. I listened to the audiobook and the narration by Jan Maxwell is excellent. But the book itself drove me a bit nuts.

Too many of the characters are either despicable, dumb, or both. This isn't, in itself, a problem—despicable and dumb characters can still be interesting. But it's a problem when characters are despicable or dumb because the plot requires it in order for the story to work.

Clark works hard to convince the reader that the main character in this book is smart, strong, and capable. But the character spends a shocking amount of time being oblivious, making dumb decisions, exercising exceedingly poor judgement. We're supposed to root for her, admire her—we're not supposed to see her as someone dumb. But she does dumb things over and over because the story would fall apart if she acted sensibly.

I don't care how hard an author tries to convince me a character is smart and admirable, I'm not going to root for them when I spend so much of the book yelling at them to stop being an idiot.

Most of the secondary characters are horrible people. I don't need to like the characters to enjoy the book, and horrible people can be fascinating. But the only reason they're all reprehensible is because Clark makes most of them viable suspects at one point or another—they have to be bad so the reader can believe they could all be murderers. But none of them are bad in ways that make them interesting characters.

There are essentially two ways you can approach characters and storytelling: You can come up with interesting characters, put them in a fraught situation, and watch how they handle it. Or you can come up with a good story and then build the characters to suit the story's needs.

Neither method is intrinsically better or worse, and both can result in stellar work. But even with the story-first, characters-second method, your characters still need to be interesting and dimensional.

Clark's characters just aren't. They're marionettes to the needs of the story and their character traits have little do with anything else.

It doesn't help, either, that she sets up so many different people as the possible murderer. Any of them would make perfect sense, so it doesn't much matter who it turns out to be. The final reveal has no punch.

There are redeeming qualities here:

This book is basically a series of deflections, as Clark makes you suspect one person, then another, then another, and then back to the first suspect again, and and and, through an impressively large cast of characters. I love all the techniques she employs: the red herrings, the character flaws, the conflicts, the lies and alibis and suspicions. For all her obvious manipulations, it's not easy to guess whodunit—and being manipulated is much of the joy. This is where her writing craft shines.

The novel is perfectly paced, with a well balanced blend of macabre and intimate, humane and monstrous.

There are some characters who are wonderful: the seasoned detective, the supportive neighbor from the main character's past, the infuriating high school wanna-be journalist. I was happiest when I got to spend time with them.

And I'll listen to just about anything Jan Maxwell narrates. She's got a good voice.

The story in Nighttime Is My Time is fine, and very well crafted, but it's rote. And not enough of the characters are interesting enough to make up for that. The main character is infuriatingly oblivious for no good reason and too many of the rest of the cast are horrible and tepid.

I'll probably keep reading an occasional Mary Higgins Clark book because I do enjoy them. But I'll give this one a miss next time around. show less

This was my first read by Clark -- certainly an éminence grise in the field -- and I must say enjoyed it. I picked this up because I read was about a class reunion as the setting for a former nerd taking murderous revenge on his onetime bullies, and that is exactly the kind of petty fantasy nonsense I can empathise with.

While the reunion part was disappointing, the other plotlines that were introduced picked up the slack. Essentially, the reunion is there to provide a plethora of suspects, and Clark skilfully makes it seem as though they all could be the killer. Of course, tension ramps up towards the end. Nothing surprising, but a quality crime read nonetheless.

So. Not a raving review, but simply a solid whodunnit.

Jean Sheridan, college dean and historian, works to prevent The Owl from murdering her female college classmates.

FROM AMAZON: "The definition of an owl had always pleased him: a night bird of prey...sharp talons and soft plumage which permits noiseless flight...applied figuratively to a person of nocturnal habits. 'I am The Owl,' he would whisper to himself after he had selected his prey, 'and nighttime is my time.'"
Jean Sheridan, a college dean and prominent historian, sets out to her hometown to attend the 20-year reunion of Stonecroft Academy alumni, where she is to be honored along with six other members of her class. There is something uneasy in the air: one woman in the group about to be feted, Alison Kendall, a beautiful, show more high-powered Hollywood agent, drowned in her pool during an early-morning swim. Alison is the fifth woman in the class whose life has come to a sudden, mysterious end.

Adding to Jean's sense of unease is a taunting, anonymous fax she received, referring to her daughter -- a child she had given up for adoption 20 years ago.

At the award dinner, Jean is introduced to Sam Deegan, a detective obsessed by the unsolved murder of a young woman who may hold the key to the identity of the Stonecroft killer. Jean does not suspect that among the distinguished people she is greeting is The Owl, a murderer nearing the countdown on his mission of vengeance against the Stonecroft women who had mocked and humiliated him, with Jean as his final victim. show less

For the 1st half of the book I was convinced it was one guy, then I decided that was too obvious. Then I thought it was a different guy for totally different reasons but I changed my mind quickly. For the last 50 pages I was convinced that I finally figured it out. However, I was very wrong. The guy I least suspected to be the killer was the one. It was one thing that he did that completely convinced me that he couldn't possibly be the killer. This book is full of twists and turns and Ms Clark keeps you guessing all the way to the end. You will be surprised who the killer is.....

Nighttime is My Time is your standard murder mystery novel. There is a mysterious murder committed by a mysterious murderer and a group of people trying to figure out which one of them did it. If you've read a few mysteries, you know what you are getting from this.

I had a really hard time enjoying this novel in the beginning. All the characters are so alike it's hard to differentiate between them. One guy had a crush on a girl in high school but was kind of nerdy and got picked on a lot. The 2nd guy had a crush on the same girl and was kind of nerdy and got picked on a lot. The 3rd guy also had a crush on the girl and was kind of nerdy and got picked on a lot, etc. I found it hard to remember who was who in the beginning because they show more were all so similar.

This problem is further emphasized by how the author constantly switches perspective. Not only does the perspective switch from character to character a lot, but also switches from first and third-person point of view mid-sentence. This is a quick-paced book, but sometimes I'd find myself disoriented when the viewpoint shifted, especially when I was still trying to figure out which nerdy kid was which in the beginning.

Was the novel enjoyable? Sure. It was a fun novel that kept me turning pages late into the night. But ultimately it's an average, run-of-the-mill mystery with a few problems early on. There are countless other mysteries you could read that would be a better choice than this one. Not recommended. show less

I really enjoyed this book, which appealed to me from the very first page. Warning: It is a highly addictive book, which was difficult to put down! This was finished on the same day it was started - although in the early hours of the morning. I like the fast moving paced of books by Mary Higgins Clark, and the way they keep you guessing throughout the book about 'Who Did It'. As the book moved on I kept changing my mind about who 'The Owl' was, but still got it wrong. Curses!
If like fast moving suspense books that keep you fully engaged I would recommend this book. Enjoy!

A class reunion provides the backdrop for this novel. A serial killer appears to be at work. Much of the book concerns itself with one member missing and others concerned the last member of a group will be the next victim. I did not enjoy this book. Too much action came from tiresome conversation. I never got past apathy for all the characters. I considered abandoning the book several times, but I wanted to read a book by Clark after her death. I obviously picked the wrong one from my library's e-book collection.