Nightwork: A Novel

Much of the beginning of this novel is very similar to a recent novel by Atticus Lish, The War for Gloria, wherein a young son grows up way too early in order to care for his mother, who has been stricken with a deadly disease. That, however, ends the similarity, as Nightwork is the story of an attractive master thief with an unlikely moral center.

As this is a romance novel with a suspense-based overstory, the reader is asked to suspend any disbelief and enjoy the love story. The two main characters are the thief, Harry Booth, and the beautiful Miranda Emerson. Miranda, of course, complicates his life by becoming the kind of love and attachment who could derail the sleuth’s identity as he slips through jobs whilst remaining undercover.

The story is well told and interesting, although this reader found the last one hundred pages predictable and unnecessary—and yet there is a postscript to boot. Nora Roberts is the first inductee into the Romance Writers’ Hall of Fame as well as a New York Times best-selling author. She has written over two hundred books and has honed her craft well so that her fans will be delighted by this latest entry in her catalogue.