Night Strike (1990)

Author: Gregory G. Vanhee | Page Count: 375

"Oh, c'mon, Kelly. This is all just a bit maudlin, isn't it?"

Not actually maudlin. Somewhat entertaining, kind of cheesy and a little dated now, but the latter can't be helped. The story follows protagonists J.R. Kelly, a gruff, balding cop turned CIA agent, and Rosemary Hawkins, a national security advisor known for using her feminine wiles and her political savvy to get ahead, while a domestic terror plot is brewing against the president.

That was a very non-spoilerish description despite how much is given away on the damn cover just above and on the back of the book and through very blunt foreshadowing that ends many chapters. The book is a halfway decent thriller that is a conservative wet dream about sexy women, spies, booze and destroying commies with high tech toys in the height of Cold War tensions. Or rather what a liberal thinks is a wet dream of conservatives. It comes off almost as a parody of the spy thriller genre, but seems to be totally serious. It at least doesn't diminish the entertainment value and is the literary equivalent of a summer blockbuster filled with explosions. Partly engaging and then mostly forgotten once it's done, but not necessarily bad.

2½ Old white Blue-Bloods are evil incarnate out of 5

Before I Go to Sleep (2011)

Author: S.J. Watson | Page Count: 368

Before I Go To Sleep is a novel about a woman who wakes up every morning and learns that she has amnesia, that she is married to a total creepazoid, and that, after decades, she is seeing a neurologist whose  groundbreaking method of treating her is having her write down what happened that day in a journal. Most of these characters should've been easy to sympathize with, but truthfully, I was more interested in yelling at them for being so excruciatingly annoying to read about. At times, Christine's neurologist seemed as annoyed as I was, but I couldn't manage to like him either.

S.J. Watson, who I suspect thinks breasts feel like bags of sand, is very obviously not a woman, and did not do the basic research required to learn that they do not, in fact, feel like they exist separately from the rest of your body. The book's incredibly obvious plot twist rests on Watson's lack of knowledge about long term care facilities, and, while I have no experience with treating amnesiacs, I assume that that aspect of the book is badly handled as everything else. I actually physically rolled my eyes at the book's ending and am now glowering at Tess Gerritsen for thinking this is the best debut she has ever read.

If you like Mary Higgins Clark novels or "mysteries" in which there are only two possible solutions, you will probably enjoy this more than I did.

1 reason I need to never read anything that could be described as chick lit out of 5.