Night Vision

Starred review from February 27, 2012
In Adams’s superlative seventh Naomi Blake novel (after 2010’s Blood Ties), Naomi’s husband, Det. Insp. Alec Friedman, looks into the death of Neil Robinson, sent to prison by Alec for fraud but found murdered in his cell a few days before his release date. Alec learns that reporter Jamie Dale, a Christmas card exchanging acquaintance of Naomi’s, died in a suspicious car crash at about the same time, and that Jamie was in contact with Robinson just before his death. Naomi, left alone in the house while Alec pursues the investigation, is confused and terrified by phone calls replaying a recording of Jamie calling Naomi’s name as she dies. Naomi comes to realize that her own involvement in this case is more than incidental. Tight, tense writing, sympathetic but strong characters, deep personal politics, and complexities that never feel contrived make this a heart-pumping, satisfying read.

April 15, 2012
Former detective Naomi Blake (Blood Ties, 2011, etc.) is terrified by telephone calls from a former friend who died in a fiery crash. DI Alec Friedman can't figure out why he and DCI Nick Travers have been sent out of town to help investigate the murder of Neil Robinson shortly before his release from a minimum-security facility in the South. Their arrest of Robinson some years back for his role in a Ponzi scheme hardly qualifies them as experts. And the local cops--taciturn DI Eddison, chatty DS Munroe and hotshot DI Parks--seem on top of the case. Alec is particularly reluctant to leave his wife Naomi on her own, even though the blind ex-cop has her guide dog Napoleon, 15-year-old prodigy Patrick and his father Harry to keep her company. When Travers is slashed to ribbons in his motel room, Alec's misgivings deepen. Even if his DI survives, Travers' contributions to the case are now reduced to musings about his affair with Michelle Sanders, currently governor of the prison where Robinson died, along with mutterings about a mysterious "Gregory," who's apparently still alive. But when Naomi receives a series of phone calls from her old friend Jamie Dale, a reporter who burned to death in a car fire, Alec is scared out of his wits. Should he chuck the case and go home to Naomi? Or will his investigation unearth a link between Robinson, Dale and this shadowy Gregory that will ensure his wife's safety in the long run? More thriller than mystery, Naomi's eighth leaves way too many loose ends to satisfy.

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 15, 2012
DI Alec Friedman and DCI Martin Travers are working on an investigation that may link to one of their old cases. Neil Robinson, a convict serving a sentence for fraud, is murdered just a few days before his release. Jamie Dale, a journalist and friend of Friedman's wife, Naomi, has died under mysterious circumstances, too. What was Robinson going to tell Dale? With Alec out of town on the case, Naomi, who is blind, gets a phone call, seemingly from the dead journalist, and turns to an old friend and his son. The phone call proves to be a harbinger of violence to come. A solid procedural with plenty of suspense.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)