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Summary: By Tim Huffman, author of SLAVER'S CHALLENGE
Review: A fine piece to add to the world of Atticus Kodiak. Rucka has a deft touch in the evocation of the mean streets and the ways of the shadows who inhabit them. I enjoyed and was pleasantly surprised by the narrative devices that he employed and was pleased in how he brought them off. I won't tell you anything about the book or the plot itself, but just note that it is a well crafted work, daring in several ways and an excellent read. Bring on the next one!
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Summary: By Tim Huffman, author of SLAVER'S CHALLENGE
Review: A fine piece to add to the world of Atticus Kodiak. Rucka has a deft touch in the evocation of the mean streets and the ways of the shadows who inhabit them. I enjoyed and was pleasantly surprised by the narrative devices that he employed and was pleased in how he brought them off. I won't tell you anything about the book or the plot itself, but just note that it is a well crafted work, daring in several ways and an excellent read. Bring on the next one!
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Summary: A TRUE HEROINE IN A TRUE THRILLER!
Review: A gripping mystery, packed with action and menace both physical and moral, Shooting at Midnight has all of the phenomenal, inventive urgency we've come to expect from Rucka's novels -- and then some. At it's heart, this book is a deep and moving meditation on the force of friendship and identity - the question of how to honor the guardians of our past without re-igniting the bridges we've burned. Our guide this time is the enticingly competent and complex Bridgett Logan -- a stunningly refreshing narrative voice in the still predominantly male-populated landscape of hard-boiled fiction. As a character, Bridgett is a triumph - moving, modern, and believable to her boot-covered toes. As a narrator, Bridie takes us on a breath-taking adventure, made all the more terrifying by the degree to which it is so clearly so personal. There is no question that Rucka knows and loves these characters as friends and family. Spend an evening with this book, and you will, too!
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Summary: I couldn't put it down!
Review: A master of realistic dialog, Greg Rucka's been honing his skills! Shooting at Midnight is outstanding. Familiar from Rucka's other thrillers, Keeper, Finder and Smoker, the two narrators in this book, Bridgett Logan and Atticus Kodiak, speak with assertiveness and conviction, but they're also regular people. Bridgett is hands down one of the coolest protagonists around. She's tough, intelligent, intrepid and a recovering heroin addict with commitment issues and trouble relating to her sister (a nun). A private investigator, Bridgett is resourceful, accomplished and really hard to intimidate. You've got to admire her. What makes her loveable, however, are her flaws. Bridgett's past catches up with her when an old rehab friend (10 year old son in tow) shows up asking for help. It's all chaos from there on out with law enforcement, drug runners, private eyes, lies, secrets, a murder or two, a million dollars worth of missing heroin, etc. This is one of the best thrillers I've ever read--intelligent, complex, suspenseful, but most of all with wonderfully flawed characters who are giving their lives and work and relationships everything they've got. This is definitely Rucka's finest work to date. Can't wait for the next!
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Summary: Revitalized by a junkie
Review: A new narrator and focus adds vigor and staying power to this series. The reader is hooked early and stays for the ride. A real good read. Let's hope this continues. Hit me with another shot.
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Summary: A gripping and emotionally driving story - great!
Review: AS with his other Atticus Kodiak books, Rucka pulls no punches and delivers incredibly honest and fully fleshed out characters who become your closest acquaintences while you're reading. Like very few other writers, Rucka has the ability to fully engulf and pull you in his words, so much so that your arms will start itching during some of the scenes in Shooting. It's not a pleasant story by any means, but nonetheless, its a book that you can't put down. Clear your schedule when you pick this one up. Rucka's work continues to get better with each book - can't wait to read Critical Mass!
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Summary: Rucka knocks it out of the park...Again
Review: As with his previous works, Rucka once again gives us something most rare with Shooting at Midnight-quite simply, honest characters. Characters who live and die by their beliefs and the choices they make that stem from those beliefs. At the same time Rucka knows how to spin a ripping good yarn rife with action, suspense, and mystery. Rucka understands well the idea of "character=action" so rather than parade cardboard cut-outs through a fun house of obstacles, he gives us Bridgett Logan, one of the deepest, most full realized, literary characters (male or female) to hit the mystery scene in long time. Bridie isn't perfect, and sometimes it seems like she steps wrong more than right, but she is willing to go to the wall for a friend in need-willing to risk her own life in the process. That Rucka loves his characters is obvious, but he doesn't let that love cloud the emotional honesty of the characters themselves. Do yourself a big favor and pick this book up...now.
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Summary: Weakest when he deviates from Atticus
Review: Greg Rucka has been writing suspense novels for about 7 or 8 years now, up til now focusing on the curiously named Atticus Kodiak, and bodyguard and security specialist who lives and works in New York City. This fourth book isn't narrated by Atticus, except for an interlude in the middle. Instead, we're told the story by Atticus' sometime lover, Bridget Logan. We've met her in previous books, but when Rucka lets her tell her own story, it turns out that there's more to her character than Atticus has seen before, and it all comes out as this book progresses. She's a recovering heroin addict (which Atticus didn't know) and has a very checkered past, with many problems that are exacerbated by her addiction. And she also has friends, one of whom she's dedicated to helping, even at the risk of her own life. I don't typically like books about addicts or drugs. Frankly they give me the creeps, and this book, in those sections anyway, gave me the creeps in spades. I also found the character of Bridget, once we see what's going on inside her head, to be less appealing and more appalling than she was when she was Atticus' girlfriend, through his eyes. She's stubborn, not very honest, annoyingly self-centered, and at times downright stupid. These two things detracted from what was otherwise a worthwhile book; I still enjoyed it though, and Rucka manages to make an ending to the story that surprised me, and pleased me a bit more than I thought it would.
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Summary: Rucka's Best So Far
Review: Greg Rucka wisely shifts the focus of his fourth novel form boyscout bodyguard Atticus Kodiak to tough gal PI Bridgett Logan. While Kodiak is part of the story, this is Bridgett's book and Rucka makes this loud, brassy, somewhat vioelnt femme into a far more intriguing hero than Kodiak could ever be. The plot is a little thin in spots, but it's really an excuse to explore where Logan came from and why she's the way she is. There are moments when I couldn't stop reading and monents where it got so intense that I had to. The only major flaw with the book is that Rucka doesn't quite know how to end it. This seems to be a recurring theme of his career, both in the novels and the comics he writes, but he's getting better with each new work. Defintely recommended for Rucka fans, crime novel readers, and suspense fans.
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Summary: A great book that you won't want to put down!
Review: Having been a big fan of Rucka's other books, I was eagerly anticipating the arrival of Shooting at Midnight. Fortunately, it was everything I had hoped for (and more!). This book takes a new direction by being told through the eyes of Bridgett Logan, whereas the other books were told by Atticus Kodiak. Rucka makes up for the fact that Logan was barely in Smoker by letting us know her history and how she thinks. I highly recommend this book (and all of Rucka's others, which I now plan to re-read)!
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