Day into Night by Dave Hugelschaffer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’m not exactly sure how to rate this book. This is definitely one of those times when half stars would come in handy! Perhaps it’s more 3.5 than 4…
I don’t remember how I ended up with this ebook in my Kobo app, maybe it was on sale or something, but it’s been sitting around awhile, silently adjuring me to pick it. I finally did. And I did at a time that suited my mood. I needed something not heavy on the brain, something escapist, something Canadian. And most of all a good story. This one fit the bill.
However, there are some unrealistic elements, sort of like those 1970s’ cop shows when the hero takes a beating that would floor giants and somehow keeps on ticking. Those kinds of unrealistic elements would normally be non-starters for me. But I rolled right over them, practically not caring, twitching away my scathing disbelief. There was also a feeling of skimming right over the emotions. I wondered at one point if it was a diction problem or that the character himself doesn’t connect well to his own emotions and so the author had mimicked that for the reader or if the author was sort of skirting around because he was more interested in the plot and action. I’m still not sure.
On the positive side, I had a good sense of the characters. The hero is well drawn. The author cleverly misled the reader. The setting of forest fires during a hot summer was enjoyably different. It didn’t have boring bits that would make one want to skim. And the ending in its nuanced greyness without being absolutely depressing like some mysteries these days, suited my Canadian heart. I’ve borrowed the second in the series from the Toronto Library and hope to begin reading it soon.
