The Color of Night

I do not understand the reviews that praise plots, character development, writing style and intelligence then reward a 3 or 4. Lindsay has to be one of the best kept secrets in modern American literature. His stories are without exception deft, deep and dramatic and the characters are so utterly REAL - with hidden sorrows, unforgiven deeds and hosts of other problems. Yet they all strive for love and completeness.As usual the research complements the story. I knew next to nothing about the business side of collecting drawings - or the drawing world in general for that matter. But the way he weaves this world with his "other" plot is superb. His heroes (he is a man's writer) are uniformly suave, masculine, Thomas Crownes with angst. Our apparently relaxed and successful collector is of course not what he appears but instead is a former spy. In a Ten Little Indians reference, all members of his team are being murdered one by one. He meets a beautiful woman who may or may not be all she seems and in the end there is an act of revenge that literally stuns. Mara and Strand are the perfect couple in Lindsay's universe. Teir sophistication, panache and verbal foreplay are the stuff of great movies and great novels. A great read!

Harry Strand has long since retired from American intelligence. He meets lovely Mara Song, thinks it's love, then one day he plays one of her videos and sees his wife's last moments on the screen. Her car is forced off the road and all he can do is watch. It's not long before he realizes that the two sides, who he ripped off vast funds from, are out to get him. Because during the forgotten cold war, when he was supposed to be channeling American monies to anti-communist criminals he was actually founding his own charitable foundation and trust fund. Harry has made some nasty enemies. But does he want them off his back, or does he want to make them pay? It must have been hard for the writers of secret agent fiction to deal with the end of the cold war. No longer were readers swallowing hook, line and sinker a whole genre of fiction. Spy book writers had to come up with new ideas, new twists and David Lindsey does a superb job of just that in COLOR OF NIGHT, a book I borrowed from my boyfriend that kept me awake long after my bedtime. Reviewed by Sara Hackett, who just adore's her husband Jack Priest's books Ragged Man, Gecko & Night Witch.

Harry Strand has long since retired from American intelligence. He meets lovely Mara Song, thinks it's love, then one day he plays one of her videos and sees his wife's last moments on the screen. Her car is forced off the road and all he can do is watch. It's not long before he realizes that the two sides, who he ripped off vast funds from, are out to get him. Because during the forgotten cold war, when he was supposed to be channeling American monies to anti-communist criminals he was actually founding his own charitable foundation and trust fund. Harry has made some nasty enemies. But does he want them off his back, or does he want to make them pay? It must have been hard for the writers of secret agent fiction to deal with the end of the cold war. No longer were readers swallowing hook, line and sinker a whole genre of fiction. Spy book writers had to come up with new ideas, new twists and David Lindsey does a superb job of just that in COLOR OF NIGHT, a book I borrowed from my boyfriend that kept me awake long after my bedtime.

After wandering away from Stewart Hayden mysteries and trying varying characters with varying degrees of success, Lindsey has finally (re)found the combination. Fast-paced, dark, superb. More along the lines, perhaps, of Ludlum than what we've come to expect from Lindsey, but it fits like a glove.

Just a great book, from page one. Lindsey's best yet -- and that's saying a lot! The writing is the kind of great, serious-fiction writing we used to see in the 40s and 50s...but with an up-to-the-minute tale. --JS