My Review of Home Before Night by J.P. Pomare has just been posted at:

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/home-night-jp-pomare

Above all else, Pomare knows how to write tension, misdirection, pace and threat.

I came to 'Home Before Night' with high expectations after having read 'Tell Me Lies' which opened with a woman pushing a man in front of a train on the Melbourne Metro and then spent the rest of the novel on what generated the anger and hate behind that push. It was a story riddled with lies and deceptions, soaked in threat and guilt and it kept me on the edge of my seat.

'Home Before Night' starts with a new mother leaving her baby with her husband on the beach to cool off in the calm shallows. Then she gets caught in an undertow and the father has to decide whether to stay with the baby or rescue his wife. The action is vivid and intense. And that's only the prologue.

The action rolls forward nearly two decades and we're watching a divorced single mother worrying because her teenage son hasn't returned home before curfew on the first night of the new lockdown.

The atmosphere was filled with anxiety. There was a strong sense that something was wrong but I didn't know what. I didn't know enough about the mother to assess her reactions or enough about the son to guess what he was up to but there was more going on than just a missed curfew.

As the story went on there are hints about crimes and cover-ups in the parents' past. There are doubts about the son's new girlfriend and her cultish family. There are doubts about just about everyone and everything and by the time I was halfway through I knew that lockdown was the least important part of the tale and that guilt, lies and betrayals were driving the increasingly dark plot which was clearly headed towards a violent confrontation.

Even though I was looking for misdirection and I knew I didn't really know what was going on, the twist, when it came, caught me completely by surprise and was different and worse than I'd expected.

I listened to 'Home Before Night' on a long, but not-quite-long-enough, car ride. I was so wrapped up in the story that I had immediately to sit down for another ninety minutes to find out how the story ended.

So, 'Home Before Night' had a strong, engaging plot with clever misdirection and a surprising premise which hooked my curiosity and held it to the end. There were points in the book where it seemed to me that the pacing was off. These were mostly moments of introspection when the mother or the son were going through the options of what could be going on and what they should be doing next. These moments went on a little too long and felt a little clunky. Perhaps it was because the introspection was being used for plot exposition rather than character development that made the text drag a little.

Even so, the book was fun and I'll be back for more. I have J. P. Pomare's latest book, 'Trapdoor' (2023) and 'In The Clearing' (2019) in my TBR pile. ( )

This is the second novel that I've read set in Covid-19 in Australia (TRACED, Catherine Jinks). Few overseas readers will realise how Draconian the measures were that were taken here in the name of "keeping us safe."

When Samuel doesn't get home by the time lockdown hits, his mother worries about where he is. Citizens can't just come and go as they like. The police are keeping a look out for law breakers, and there are heavy financial penalties.

When Samuel finally gets in touch to say he is staying at his girlfriend's his mother thinks that there are things that just don't add up. Thinking back over his recent behaviour she worries that he has found out something she has kept from him all of his life. The reader already knows what that secret is, but there is something that is far worse.

But the way this comes to light makes you wonder if Lou really thought she could get away with it. ( )

J.P. Pomare’s latest thriller, Home Before Night, begins just as Melbourne residents are ordered into another pandemic lockdown. Single mother Lou tries to contact her 19 year old son Samuel to ensure he’s heard the news and comes home in time, but he doesn’t return her calls or text messages.

Pomare builds the tension well as Lou, unable to reach her son as the lockdown comes into effect, begins to panic. Her ex-husband is dismissive when she phones him, accusing her of being overbearing, among other things, but Lou is certain there is something wrong. She should be relieved when Sam finally video calls her late the next day claiming to be staying with his girlfriend, but there is something about his demeanour, and the video’s background, that bothers her.

It’s not clear, however, if Lou’s instincts can be trusted. She’s a heavy drinker, and presents as perhaps a little paranoid, in part troubled by a secret from her past that Pomare teases out. Deft plotting suggests several possible reasons for Sam’s absence, ensuring the reveal will likely come as a surprise.

At just under 200 pages long, Home Before Night is a fast paced and entertaining read, but also much shorter than I expected, with the paperback padded with a 100 page preview of Pomare’s forthcoming novel, Seventeen Years Later, to be published in 2024. ( )