Reviews for Escape the night

The average rating for Escape the night based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-11-29 00:00:00 Gerald Broom Escape the Night was originally published in 1983 and is now available as an e-book. I suggest that you add it to your e-book collection but save it for when you have some time to devote to it. I promise you won't want to put it down for long. I just had to know what would happen. The story is about obsession and involves three generations of a family who own a publishing company in Manhattan. John Peter "Black Jack" Carey is the force who brought control of the company solely into his own hands. He's ruthless and fiercely devoted to his company. His wife endures years of emotional abuse but produces two sons, Phillip and Charles. These sons are prodded into competing with each other for favored status in their father's mind and, most importantly his will. Phillip, however, is weak and Charles is the golden one. Also Charles marries a beautiful woman and they have a son, John Peter Carey II, who is practically a clone of his father. Charles adores him, and in old age so does his father. Phillip is left as a pathetic also-ran. The obsession begins when Charles unfortunately comes under the notice of the HUAC because they believe he is publishing leftist writers, and actually he is prescient in recognizing new talented writers who may have ideas that don't exactly mesh with what the HUAC sees as proper. He doesn't back down but eventually the HUAC backs off, except for the investigator who was assigned to their case. He is later fired and moves to the CIA where he learns more effective spying techniques. Another man is obsessed with the company and particularly Black Jack because his father committed suicide due to Black Jack refusing to rehire him. He is yet another danger. I may have told a little too much, but I won't tell more because the last thing I want to do is ruin your enjoyment of this intricately plotted, beautifully written novel. Patterson is best known perhaps for his courtroom dramas and I have loved the ones I've read, but this is totally different. It is, I think, the best of his work that I have thus far encountered. The characters, not just the family but the others as well, are portrayed just stereotypically enough to fit the plot and add to the fear factor. The evil ones are truly evil and one positively insane, but sometimes you know you just have to go with the flow and enjoy the read for what it is. If you do that, you'll be on tenterhooks for sure. I read this during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, and was prompted to be very thankful that I'm not a member of a powerful family, nor do I have wealth that anyone else would covet. I'm just a reader who can become involved with a good story and when I'm finished, go on to something else, but only after a little period of relishing what a good story it was. Highly recommended Source: Open Road Media via Netgalley

Review # 2 was written on 2012-12-11 00:00:00 Eric Caldwell I felt like I was reading three different types of books pasted together. The first 90 pages is an elegiac memoir of a sweet childhood, a happy Peter Carey, with underlying rumbles of trouble due to his parents' (Charles and Alicia Carey) complicated lives as rich people, but dependent on a dictator of a grandfather, John Carey, and about Charles' brother, Philip, who is deliberately set up by John as a competitor to Charles for a decade in taking over a publishing company that the grandfather started. Charles and Philip could not help but hate each other. John makes sure that every book acquisition is a race between the brothers in making the most money for the company, and that every decision is a threat to their possible advancement in the company. This part of the book is quite literary in tone, primarily due to Patterson's skill at writing. The second part of the book is a deeper look at the competition between Charles and Philip, as well as exposing the wasting away of Charles' marriage to Alicia. Here, establishing the psychology behind their relationships appears to be the main point, as well as introducing how truly crazy characters, anti-communist spy hunter Englehardt and later, Clayton Barth with his pet psychopath Martin, enter their lives and topple over what is already an anxious setup. This part is the weakest in the writing; it's more like that of a summer beach read of a standard thriller genre, and the part where many readers may forget where they mislaid this book after setting it down somewhere. Charles and Alicia die in a car crash; John rewrites his will; uncle Phillip is expecting to fully own the company one day. However, when John dies, Phillip is disgusted that he is only 49% owner of the company; Peter holds 51% interest, even though still a child. Peter grows up, takes up the reins of his grandfather's company. The third part begins to unravel the secrets behind the deaths of Charles and Alicia, and why the adult Peter continues to have a nightmare almost every night of his father burning. He has also fallen in love. He understands he is holding back from his beloved, Noelle, so he goes to see a therapist, Dr. Levy, a man who also was his father's best friend in school and who now is a Freudian psychiatrist. (For some reason, the remake movie 'Obsession' with Cliff Robertson popped into my head. I think its because of the soap opera elements, along with my growing realization this was not a 4 star read, was beginning to hit me). Although this part of the book extracted groans from me regarding the obvious attempt to link Freudian theories to the development of the Careys' relationships to each other, the book actually develops in this last section into a big cinematic ending. Everything is revealed, with guns banging away and a heroine to be saved from a horrible death (no explosions, though). If I'd been given a more detailed synopsis about the book, I don't think I'd have chosen to read it. But once I'd started it, I was interested enough to finish it. Is that a back-assed recommendation, or what? The writing is expert as far as putting sentences down on paper, but otherwise if books could be disturbed 13-year olds, as changeable in focus and personality as the wind, I'd describe this book as a young teenager. However, it is definitely an R rated book, with scenes of graphic sex described. Truthfully, I finished it also partially because I purchased it, and also since I like this author usually (he's much better in later books).