Night Sins by Tami Hoag

Book Review:1 Treasure Box
First Deer Lake Novel
Publisher: Bantam; First Thus edition (December 1, 1995), Mass Market Paperback: 576 pages, Language: English, ISBN-10: 055356451X, ISBN-13: 978-0553564518

A little 8 year old boy, Josh Kirkwood, has been kidnapped by a clue leaving madman.  It is up to Megan O’Malley, a new officer and Police Chief Mitch Holt to find the boy before it is too late in the small Minnesota town of Deer Lake.

This is the first book in the Deer Lake Series, there was a second book written in this small town, but with different characters called Guilty as Sin.  To date Tami Hoag has written 14 suspense novels including one of my favourites, Don’t Kill The Messenger (see my review at https://books-treasureortrash.com/?p=741.)  She has also written 16 romance novels. Night Sins is written in the third person narrative focusing primarily on our protagonist Megan O’Malley.  The narrative also switches over to Mitch Holt at times as well as our prime suspect and a few of the other characters in the book.

The subject was sad because a small boy has been kidnapped. It tells the tale of a town and family as they deal with the tragedy.  The story covers Officer Megan O’Malley in both her personal and professional life as she tries to find the boy and his kidnapper.  There is also a love story mixed in with the sadness, between Megan and Mitch.

I found that the characters were somewhat one-sided, although there was more depth in Megan and Mitch’s characters.  The story takes place in the mid 1990s and so it is a bit dated. I liked the sexual tension build-up between these two, although I am not sure it is believable. The book takes us on a roller coaster ride as we follow Megan as she tracks down the kidnapper. The ending was ambivalent but still satisfactory. Although it did not answer all the questions, it left gave enough information for us to draw own conclusions.

The story was interesting, but it was not compelling, so if you have nothing better to do and you enjoy reading a bit of suspense then you will enjoy this book.

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