[.ca] Instruments of Night (ISBN 0553578200)

From Amazon.com:
Paul Graves is a crime writer obsessed with a single crime--the murder of his own teenaged sister on their Southern farm almost 40 years before. To work out his guilt and fear, he has created a series of mysteries set at the turn of the century, in which a dedicated detective pursues a fiendish killer called Kessler--the real name of the man who slaughtered his sister. His obsession has made Graves a sad, lonely man, "living thinly, without connections," already preparing to kill himself when he can no longer write his books. Keeping readers interested in a dark and brooding character like Graves is no easy task, and Thomas H. Cook--who won an Edgar for his superb The Chatham School Affair--needs all his narrative skills to avoid sinking us in a sea of gloom. Invited to Riverwood, a Hudson River Valley estate turned into a writers' retreat, to help solve a 50-year-old mystery involving the death of a young woman, Graves is assisted by a shrewd and sympathetic playwright, Eleanor Stern. Together, they sift through all the clues linking the dead girl to the wealthy family who owned the estate. Old-fashioned detective work plays a large part in discovering what really happened, as well as the too-convenient appearance of files and live witnesses from the period. As for Graves and his disconcerting habit of slipping back into the past at more and more frequent intervals ("You're always imagining things, aren't you? Terrible things," one character says to him), a final revelation about his personal demons turns out to be no surprise at all. Other, more satisfying Cook books available in paperback include Evidence of Blood and Breakheart Hill. --Dick Adler

Tedious and lurid:
Fifty years ago, the peaceful artist's community of Riverwood was shattered by the murder of young Faye Harrison. The killer was never caught. In the present Paul Graves, a famous writer of detective stories, is called by one of the residents to give Faye's dying mother a plausible explanation of what happened to her daughter. It does not have to be a true one, as long as it is believable. But Graves is a haunted man who has seen his older sister brutally murdered years ago, and his books all feature the namesake of the man who killed her, as well as plumbing the depths of darkness within the human mind. Gloomy and tormented by his memories, he is determined to find out the truth about what happened to Faye, even if it means confronting his own demons. This is a book not for the faint-hearted. In the short space allotted to him to probe the depths of a killer's mind, Cook manages to pack about every ignomity done by man to (wo)man, with the possible exception of rape (only alluded at). But this display of gruesomeness grows tedious and seems to serve no interest other than to shock the reader. What a pity. The initial premise was quite original, but the story lapses into a detective-cum-psychological thriller that not only features irritating 'revelations' by convenient witnesses (the policeman in charge of the case fifty years back not only has a son, but the man is willing to help two perfect strangers as they rifle through his papers and cast dispersion on his father's honesty) but also a rather bland dénouement. The ending was supposed to be a surprise,I surmise. But Graves' role in his sister's death was obvious from the beginning, and the final explanation of how Faye was killed leaves something to be desired (to be honest, I thought this kind of resolution was a no-go in detective stories; I mean this is cheating). And the language grows a little too florid, even if I understand that it is partly due to Paul's taste for melodrama. Avoid.

Quiet but powerful:
This book is breathtaking. It is a quiet mystery - no car chases, captures, narrow escapes, etc, but the writing is beautiful and lyrical, and the mystery is powerful - the author deftly weaves the horrible events from Graves' childhood with the mystery he is exploring, and fills the book with intriguing suspects, twists and turns, and surprises. Underneath this is a powerful thread - Graves' guilt, which both destroyed his life and allowed his success as a writer, and the horrors of the Nazis, which crept into the quiet world of Ravenwood. ***WARNING - SPOILER AHEAD*** Graves tears at the reader's heart - he was a good, hardworking teenager who was confronted with horrors that were too large for him to handle and made a choice based upon these, but he cannot see that as a teenager he was not to blame for the choices, and should not carry a lifetime of guilt for them. At first I was very angry about the ending, but when I reread it carefully I realized I misunderstood it, and the ending is actually perfect - a chance for Graves' redemption and forgiveness. Overall, this book is dark and very moving.

Perfect Book for Mystery Lovers!:
I really enjoyed reading Cook's Instruments of Night. I, being the mystery reader I am, thought that this book posessed all of the qualities a good mystery book should have. Suspense, horror, chills, good detective work, etc. The twists and turns in this book were unbelieveable! It seemed like once you had gotten your mind set on one thing, another thing would present itself, changing your whole perspective. The ending was amazing finding out who Sykes was and how Faye really died. This was the first book that I read of Cook's and will definitely not be my last.

Another masterpiece by Cook.:
Yes, I think it's a masterpiece. Exceptionally well written, an emotional rollercoaster that will turn you inside out, and a final revelation that will haunt you for days. As perfect a novel as Cook's "Breakheart Hill". Read it. Read it now.

Another Cook masterpiece:
Instruments of Night is not written in a stylish prose like Breakheart Hill, but this makes it none the less desriptive. Some reviewers have described the level of sadism or violence to be too high. I am sorry for them. Cook uses small vague descriptions of violence, and makes the reader use their imagination to create the scene. He sets the stage, and your mind directs the play without effort. It was only after some retrospect that I came to realize that I was the one who conjured up the deatiled horrors that Cook hints at. That is exactly how books should be written. They should ease the reader into the book, as if they were an invisible participant, not imagining how the scenes looked, but "knowing" how it happened. I liked this book very much after I finished it, but after several minutes of replaying it inside my mind, I find that I like it even more, mostly for the reasons I mentioned above. This book is not perfect. There are a couple of mistakes that are very secondary to the machinations of the plot, and can be forgiven very easily. I will not tell you what they are, because most likely you will never notice them. The one other thing that seems out of place, is that when the main character, Graves, receives assistance from another writer in solving the mystery, it is hard to tell who, of the two, is the mystery writer. Read this book. It is short, only 296 pages, and can be read in a few hours time. If you don't like it, well then you only wasted a few hours. I actually read this book when I became bogged down in another book I was reading. It was a suprisingly good 'time-out.'