"Nightmare (Nightingale: Book Three)" is the conclusion to an interesting and fairly unusual combination of police/private investigator noir procedural and occult horror fantasy. At the start of the first novel, Jack Nightingale was a crisis negotiator with the...
See more
"Nightmare (Nightingale: Book Three)" is the conclusion to an interesting and fairly unusual combination of police/private investigator noir procedural and occult horror fantasy. At the start of the first novel, Jack Nightingale was a crisis negotiator with the London PD. He is called in on a case involving a 9 year old girl, Sophie, who is perched on the top of a balcony wall on the 13th floor of a high rise, obviously intent on jumping. Jack fails, Sophie falls to her death, and after discovering that she had been chronically abused by her wealthy father, Jack immediately confronts him in his office. A few minutes later, the father has fallen or been pushed through his office window to his death on the street below. No witnesses, no official charges, but Jack's career as a cop is over for good, and he becomes a PI.
All that happens within the first few pages of Book 1 (Nightfall), followed by a number of people saying "You are going to hell, Jack Nightingale", as thing start to turn from bad to worse for Jack who finds out that his biological father sold Jack's soul to a devil before he was even born, with the due date on his 33rd birthday, only weeks away.
A lot of water flows under the bridge in the first two novels, with a huge body count, and Jack being constantly arrested by his former boss Chalmers, who is convinced that Jack is a murderer. This last in the trilogy does a fantastic job of pulling everything together in a fast-paced read with an interesting and satisfying conclusion that ups the fantasy ante significantly to involve larger issues of good versus evil and the nature of reality. Fans of the series are going to love this one. But DO NOT start here. This is not a stand-alone and is really best read as the conclusion to the trilogy. The lack of plot specifics in this review is intentional - I don't want to give away too much and what I have revealed is all contained within the first few pages of the first book.
The author, Stephen Leather, is quite well known for another series, the Dan Shepard mysteries, as well as a number of other one-offs. He writes tight, simple prose, and has a great feel for pacing. Jack Nightingale is a great protagonist. He seemed a bit too struggling gumshoe, chain-smoking stereotypical for me in the first novel, but he grew on me over time, quite a bit. He's drily funny, has no respect for authority, and treats his friends and employees well. He is also very human and shows true courage by being afraid but not letting his fear stop him. He's also a hell of a lot cleverer than he lets on.
Although Leather said that he originally intended to write Jack Nightingale as a closed trilogy, the popularity of the first three books was great enough to get his publisher to ask for more, and Mr. Leather agreed to two more, the first of which ("Nightshade") has just been published, and I'll be starting it tonight.
Highly Recommended.
J.M. Tepper
