{"id":12186,"date":"2019-03-04T19:03:40","date_gmt":"2019-03-05T00:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=12186"},"modified":"2019-03-04T19:03:40","modified_gmt":"2019-03-05T00:03:40","slug":"night-man-by-brett-battles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=12186","title":{"rendered":"‘Night Man,’ by Brett Battles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I\u2019m a big fan<\/strong> of Brett Battles\u2019s Jonathan Quinn series of thrillers. I\u2019m less enamored of his recent X-Coms spin-off series, which is heavy on Girl Power\u2122. But I was eager to read his new spin-off in a different direction, Night Man<\/a><\/em>, starring Quinn\u2019s partner, Nate (I\u2019m having trouble finding Nate\u2019s last name. I wonder if it\u2019s ever mentioned).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you may recall, Quinn and Nate are \u201ccleaners,\u201d employed\nby covert agencies to clean up things that might constitute evidence at scenes\nof action \u2013 anything from fingerprints to bodies. Their partnership suffered a\nsetback a couple years back, when Quinn\u2019s sister Liz, who\u2019d been helping them\nout, got killed. Liz had also been dating Nate, and he and Quinn were inclined\nto blame each other. That break has been mended to a degree, but it\u2019s left a\nspace in Nate\u2019s life. He now fills that space by living a secret life, more or\nless as Batman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A psychologist might argue that Nate has suffered a\npsychotic break, because he hears Liz\u2019s voice talking to him. She directs his\nattention to crime stories in the news, and he applies his spy skills to\nlocating the criminals and stopping them. He does this for Liz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time Liz directs him to the story of a young girl seriously\ninjured in a hit-and-run accident in a northern California town. The accident\nturns out to be no accident at all, and Nate will uncover a monstrous evil\nhidden discreetly away in an innocuous setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author Battles is extremely good at creating appealing\ncharacters, and can be quite funny. (I especially enjoyed the conceit of using\nvery short chapters, a technique I\u2019ve never had the nerve to try.) The writing\nis generally good, though I can\u2019t resist noting that he misuses the term \u201cbegs\nthe question\u201d once. I would have hoped for better than that, but otherwise I\nhave no complaints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recommended. Language and situations are adult, but not terribly shocking. Night Man<\/em> is a fun thriller.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m a big fan of Brett Battles\u2019s Jonathan Quinn series of thrillers. I\u2019m less enamored of his recent X-Coms spin-off series, which is heavy on Girl Power\u2122. But I was eager to read his new spin-off in a different direction, Night Man, starring Quinn\u2019s partner, Nate (I\u2019m having trouble finding Nate\u2019s last name. I wonder … Continue reading ‘Night Man,’ by Brett Battles<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[390,2016],"class_list":["post-12186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-brett-battles","tag-night-man"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}