Night by Night by Jack Jordan

In between my blog tour reads, I had the chance to read Night by Night, the latest book from Jack Jordan through the TBC Reviewers Request Group on Facebook. My thanks to Jack and Helen at TBC for my review copy.

Night by Night was published by Corvus on 2nd May 2019 and you can purchase it from Amazon.


The Blurb:

'If you're reading this, I'm dead.'

Rejected by her family and plagued by insomnia, Rose Shaw is on the brink . But one dark evening she collides with a man running through the streets, who quickly vanishes. The only sign he ever existed - a journal dropped at Rose's feet.

She begins to obsessively dedicate her sleepless nights to discovering what happened to Finn Matthews, the mysterious author of the journal. Why was he convinced someone wanted to kill him? And why, in the midst of a string of murders, won't the police investigate his disappearance?

Rose is determined to uncover the truth. But she has no idea what the truth will cost her...

My Review:

This is the first book by Jack Jordan I have read, but it certainly won't be the last.

Lonely insomniac Rose finds a journal which belonged to a young man called Finn, and details the nightmare he experienced because of a stalker, and his interactions with the police. And nobody has seen Finn for two years. Tormented by two tragedies in her own life, and with nothing else to do, she decided to try to look for Finn. She wasn't prepared for what she found.

This is clearly a crime/psychological thriller, but it was such an emotional read! Much more so than I expected. Rose is a standout character - she just broke my heart. Haunted by her memories and rejected by her family, I could see why she was so keen to pursue an issue which was nothing to do with her, but might give her a chance to do something worthwhile. And I felt I knew Finn so well from his journal and I was close to tears at times. There are other young men featured briefly, and if their stories don't stir your feelings, I'll be really surprised.

The police don't come across at all well in this book, with their lack of action in the cases featured, and in some cases homophobic persecution of the victims. Things become clearer regarding this as the story progresses, and it's absolutely shocking. I sincerely hope that we don't have people like this in our police force in this day and age, but I fear that there will still be a small number.

The pacing is great. Every time Rose makes a bit of progress, it pushes her on, makes her more determined to keep going, in the face of countless obstacles. The finale is tense, shocking and more than a little gruesome.

I know nothing about the author, but wonder if he has suffered homophobic abuse in the past, or knows someone who has. Because, for me, this was a very 'real' story, very current. It has a lot to say about what's wrong in our society today, but it's also as much about the redemption of a broken woman. I thoroughly enjoyed it.


The Author:

Bestselling author Jack Jordan wrote his first novel in 2010, shut away in his home with agoraphobia. After five years of trying to get his work published, he decided to go it alone and independently published his debut thriller, ANYTHING FOR HER, in 2015, followed by MY GIRL, in 2016. His two novels have now sold more than 100,000 copies and Jack’s third thriller, BEFORE HER EYES was published in the UK by Atlantic in August 2018. Rights have also been sold in Bulgaria. His short story A WOMAN SCORNED was published in the UK by Atlantic in June 2018.