Night Film
4.7/5 This review refers to the audio book version. The blurb to this book on Goodreads states it's a “page-turning thriller for readers of Stephen King, Gillian Flynn, and Stieg Larsson”. I never read Larsson, but as a fan of both King and Flynn, I think comparing Night Film to these works is bizarre. I suppose it is classed with King's works because it has some supernatural elements and I am not sure why they dragged Flynn in and I think these comparisons are a bit of a shame since it may set unrealistic expectations for some readers. If you are looking for The Shining or Gone Girl and you get Night Film, you may hold it against this book which is unfair since Night Film is a really good book in its own right. Night Film is in essence about Scott McGrath, and investigative journalist, who has had his journalistic credibility ruined by slanderous comments he made during his research on the famous, and seclusive, movie director Stanilas Cordova. Discovering that Cordova's daughter Ashley has apparently committed suicide leads McGrath to revive his planned story about Cordova and investigate her extraordinary life and suspicious death. He ultimately is assisted in this endeavor by two unlikely associates: a gorgeous drug-dealer Hopper, who had a connection with Ashley in the past, and an aspiring actress, Nora, who met Ashley just once, but is nonetheless drawn into the investigation. However, there is a lot more going on than just the hunt for the explanation of Ashley's death. There is also the exploration of the importance of family, and the meaning of success and the lengths we are willing to go to get it, and art, magic, and fanaticism. And then there is what I thought was a great mystery. I loved Night Film. Mostly. I did have to say that during the first third of the last third (sorry, audio book, I have no idea how else to pinpoint the location) that it started to get a bit tedious and repetitive to me. We end up in stuck in Scott's mind in a whole is-this-happening-or-am-I-crazy trope that went on far too long in my opinion. Pessl also had a weird habit of reminding the reader of things that happened earlier in the book. This wasn't awful, and may actually be helpful for a lot of folks since this isn't a short book, but because I was so interested in the mystery, I remembered those bits and was annoyed at the intrusions into the story. But onto my love, I thought the whole what-happened-to-Ashley was brilliantly balanced between possibilities, the backstories of Hopper and Nora were well done, the freaky parts were perfectly freaky, and it was well written, and with the exception of the lagging part that I mentioned above, the plotting was excellent. I see from other reviews that since I listened to Night Film, I may have missed out on the multimedia experience that it was meant to be. However, this was not much of a detraction as I had no idea there was a multimedia experience until I was looking through the reviews. It is my hunch that the producers of the audio book went to great lengths to incorporate these elements and in this they did a great job. I highly doubt I would have gotten more out of Night Film by reading newspaper articles or seeing vines of Cordova's work (not that I am sure that is what the multimedia content is) and that is a testament to good production on Random House Audio's part. Having Jake Weber read it, and read it very well, is just an additional bonus. Recommended. You can also check out this review on Goodreads and leave comments or start a discussion!
