Author: Kathy Reichs- Published: June 2017 by Cornerstone Digital
- Category: Thriller, Crime, Suspense, Book Review, Books, Reading
Meet Sunday Night, a woman with physical and psychological scars, and a killer instinct…
Sunnie has spent years running from her past, burying secrets and building a life in which she needs no one and feels nothing. But a girl has gone missing, lost in the chaos of a bomb explosion, and the family needs Sunnie’s help.
Sunday (Sunnie) Night is a recluse with a troubled past, living on a spit of land off the coast of Charleston. Ex military, she joined the Charleston Police Department until an injury and the prospect of a desk job ended her career in the force. When her foster father, Beau, visits with a proposition, Sunnie is initially wary, not wanting to get involved. She has spent the last few years distancing herself from people. Beau leaves her the details anyway, and after disposing of the piece of paper and a restless night Sunnie retrieves the screwed up piece of paper from the waste basket.
“You gonna leave me out here till I need a transfusion?’
I lifted the hook and stepped back. Beau entered, gaze skimming. A cop gaze. One spin around the cottage, then it settled on me, running the same critique I resent in my neighbor.
The scar burned an itchy path below my right eye.
“I didn’t recognize the boat.” Concentrating on normal.
“Getting the gel coat repaired. But what? You were maybe expecting Bowie?”
“He died.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Twelve months ago Opaline Druker’s daughter and grandson were killed in a bomb attack and her teenage granddaughter, Stella, disappeared in the confusion. Sunnie is hired to find Stella and whoever was responsible for the murder of her family.
I’ve been meaning to read Kathy Reichs for a long time but perhaps this wasn’t the best book to start with. On the face of it, the premise sounded good but unfortunately I couldn’t fully engage with the story. The formatting was erratic, maybe it was incompatible with the kindle app but it didn’t improve the reading experience. Perhaps it was the writing style, particularly the dialogue, which was clipped and choppy enough to be off-putting after a while. Running through was a secondary narrative in italicised flashbacks, slowly revealing what I initially believed to be Stella’s story.
I would have liked to feel more sympathy for Sunnie, which I could have done had I realised a key factor from the start. I enjoyed the beginning, the characterisations were convincing but as it went on the story began to lose its momentum with descriptions of changing hotel rooms and various regions of the country.
I suppose Sunnie could be classed as an anti heroine, tough, acerbic, scarred physically and psychologically. Her twin, Gus, was pretty laid back in comparison and the two couldn’t be more different in looks as well as demeanour. They make a great team and the chemistry is good but Gus isn’t particularly well developed. I could appreciate Sunnie’s drive to find Stella, a girl very much like herself from her grandmother’s description, troubled, sarcastic and always ready with a wisecrack, but the search for her morphed into a frantic cross-country investigation into a terrorist group.
The suspense and action sequences were well done and the twist at the end was unexpected. The book just didn’t grab me as much as I’d hoped.
I chose to read and review Two Nights based on a proof copy of the book supplied by NetGalley and the author/publisher.
Book links ~ Amazon UK | Amazon US
About Kathy Reichs
From teaching FBI agents how to detect and recover human remains, to separating and identifying commingled body parts in her Montreal lab, as one of only seventy-seven forensic anthropologists ever certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, Dr Kathy Reichs has brought her own dramatic work experience to her mesmerising forensic thrillers. For years she consulted to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in North Carolina, and continues to do so for the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Québec.
A native of Chicago, she now divides her time between Charlotte and Montreal. Kathy Reichs’s first novel Déjà Dead catapulted her to fame when it became a New York Times bestseller, a Sunday Times bestseller and won the 1997 Ellis Award for Best First Novel. All eleven of her novels have been international bestsellers. She is also a producer of the chilling hit TV series Bones. 206 Bones is her twelfth novel featuring Dr Temperance Brennan.
Author links ~ Website | Facebook | Twitter
betweenthelinesbookblog.com 
I used to love her books and have quite a few of them on my shelves and then, I don’t know what happened but she sort of seemed to go downhill for me. Pretty much like Patricia Cornwall. It all became a bit too formulaic for me and when they ventured into stand-alone country, it’s almost as if they didn’t know how to write without that formula. If that makes sense.
Anyway, I’m sorry this one didn’t grab you. I hope that doesn’t stop you from checking out her earlier work. The Tempe Brennan series used to be quite good, in my most humble opinion of course!
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Thanks, Dee. It’s a shame when that happens. I was thinking of checking out the Tempe Brennan series, it seems to be very popular.
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I just had a look at this on Amazon; the reviews are a bit on the mediocre side all round.
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Yes, I looked after I’d written my review because I really thought I was on to a winner when I requested it.
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The first of her books are well worth the read, as are Patricia Cornwell’s, but I agree that after a while, they both became too formulaic to hold my interest. Sometimes it’s a good idea to know when to bring a series to a close. I’m sorry to hear this one might not be off to such a good start, either. (On a side note, sometimes I think a television series kills a book series faster than anything else.)
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A lot of people rate the Bones series. I haven’t read Patricia Cornwell either. A TV series can work either way, I think. For example, two of Anne Cleeves’ series which have been televised – Shetland and Vera – prompted me to listen to the audios and buy several books. By the same token other TV series have put me off the books completely. Go figure 😉
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And if you are already a fan of the books, the tv series usually ends up ruining them for you. I can no longer read some of my favorites, because I see the tv characters (who are often miscast) and I have the tv versions of the plots–which are usually substantially different from the book versions–cemented in my brain, and spoiling future books. My answer was to stop watching the tv versions, period, since the book versions are almost always better. If I already love a book series, I have no desire to see just how badly tv will mess it up.
Honestly, for me, reading is so much better than tv anyway, I don’t even miss it.
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This is next on my NetGalley list! I haven’t read the Temperence Brown books, but I have a few.
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I’ll be interested to see what you think.
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Of course I meant Brennen. Temperance Brown is another story. And I should finish my coffee before commenting, ever. Ha! x
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Well, I didn’t twig 😀 x
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