Two Nights: A Novel

This story really grabbed me, I read the entire book in one night. I liked the flawed heroine, as off putting as she tried to be. The plot is intricate and engrossing. There are some great twists that moved me. I liked the subtle relationships. Is this really a stand alone? Okay by me. I would read more Sunday Night stories if they appeared. I love the Temperance Brennan character, but the recent books have become sparse on plot and a bit fluffy on character, so I favor the early Temperance much more than the later one. Kathy Reichs is a wonderful writer and should let her characters speak rather than (perhaps) her publisher.

I expected this to be a Temperance Brennan book but it wasn’t. However, I was pleasantly surprised with the new female character. It was a real page turner. Am looking forward to more from this character.

Actually, I would probably give the book 2.5 stars, but my choices were limited to full-star numbers. I have read almost all of Reichs' Temperance Brennan novels, and I was curious about a different central character. I've noticed for the last several novels that Reichs has moved more and more to an almost shotgun-like prose style, and it gets annoying after a while. The sentence fragments and partially-complete thoughts are a deliberate style choice, but without any variety in the prose, it's monotonous and keeps the reader from becoming engaged in the story. That style was on full display in this novel. Sunday Night, her central character, has potential, but I found her to be too extreme, making her not fully human and thus not as compelling as she could have been. The story was action-packed and kept moving well, but I probably would not choose to read a second entry in this series, or, for that matter, from this author. Several years ago I read one of her young-adult novels, Virals (I'm a high school librarian), and it was terribly written--really badly done. Again, the story was intriguing and had potential, but the writing was so bad I couldn't recommend it to anyone. While I enjoyed her earlier work, her recent books have struck me as shallow and poorly done.

This story is a jumbled ramble of events without an "Ah Ha!" moment of clarity to tie it all together. The ending even fails to do that. I find it hard to believe there could be a successful sequel. I've always heard "write what you know". Kathy Reichs has done that brilliantly with her past books. In contrast, this one comes off like a forced first attempt by a wannabe author. Too disjointed, too much mystery to the point of being murky as to where it was going and why. Too little character development. Too many questions left unanswered. Write what you know...good advise for this author.

Great read! I love Kathy Reichs but worried that her new hero wouldn't appeal to me. I needn't have worried. If there will be more I will read them. From Bourke to Evanovich you gotta love those novels with flawed cop/detectives and Kathy Reichs has a new one that I can definitely relate to.