Erickson, KJ – ALONE AT NIGHT

[LJ Roberts]

ALONE AT NIGHT (Police Procedural, Minneapolis, Cont/1984) – Ok Erickson, KJ – 4th book
St. Martin's Paperbacks,
2005- Paperback

In 1984, Chief of Police Sigvald "Sig" Sampson handled the case of a beautiful young clerk who disappeared from a convenience store where she worked alone at night. That case was never solved. Now, in 2003, Marshall "Mars" Bahr has reopened the case.

This starts out really well and I didn't even mind the dual time periods as Erickson quickly tied the events of the past into the present. The characters of Marshall "Mars" Bahr--okay, I'll admit I'm a little tired of cute names for protagonists--and Nettie Frisch are interesting, although I did feel there was a lack of development without having read the previous books. Bahr's son, Chris, supposedly 11, reads more like 16 to me. The plot started out well, but rather this being a suspenseful police procedural, it degraded into involving Viet Nam at one end and Osama bin Laden at the other. I kept feeling as though the author was trying to integrate political views rather than focus on a mystery. There was only one suspenseful scene toward the end, and its outcome was projected and predictable. I'm afraid I just wasn't very impressed.