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Night Crimes
By Judith Woolcock Colombo
AmErica House, Baltimore
ISBN: 1-58851-174-XReleased in April 2001
Review By Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Night Crimes is as much about love as it is about insanity, as much
about psychology as it is about crime. It's also about soul,self-expression
and art.
All that makes it a lot more than a tense thriller for a lonely
night. Still, although no one gets cannibalized in Night Crimes, in terms of
pure terror, this is a novel that will give Silence of the Lambs a run for
its money.
Colombo not only writes us into the heads of a sweet-souled cop, an
artistically edgy mother and wife but also into the very minds of a psycho or
two. Well, OK. More than two. One is an artist, the other a poet; both love
their victims. As readers we get to compare their motives, their reasoning,
their modus operandi. We come to respect their talents and their humanity;
we are angered by their lapses in reasoning, their uncontrolled insanity.
My favorite villain--if you can call him that--is an observer of the
night. He is a poet, though he may not be aware of this talent (He views
himself as God'sinstrument for death). Still, he treats us to simple poetic
descriptions of his world: "The moon paints patterns on the water's surface,"
he says. He is a bard with an intimate knowledge of death: "The desire for
death cannot be a passing whim. It is an unreturnable gift." He knows death
up close, can feel it, express it, smell it. If you are a curious sort,
you'll want to experience death the way he sees it and tells it.
If some Hollywood producer doesn't pick this up to chill the summer of
2002, it's their loss. It can be ordered at
The reviewer, Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the author of
This is the Place a recent winner in the gatekeeper awards.It is a novel about love, prejudice and redemption set in Utah in the 1950's.