Frank Sawyer is a wanderer, thriving on the adventure of hitchhiking with no thought for where he’ll end up. His untethered ways have landed him in some perilous situations, and after his recent involvement in solving a deadly mystery, he’s ready to hit the open road to visit his former mission companions on a whim. When he arrives in a small California town, Sawyer finds himself in the midst of … of what seems to be a rash of runaway teenagers. But with his outsider’s perspective, he senses something sinister in the disappearances of these small-town girls.
Unable to resist helping, Sawyer spends his time getting to know the townspeople and becoming acquainted with local law enforcement—namely, the lovely Deputy Melanie Clark. Together, Sawyer and Melanie follow a baffling trail of clues that lead to a disturbing conclusion: the girls didn’t run away. They were taken. With no distractions and nothing to lose, Sawyer will stop at nothing to find the missing girls and see justice done. But his enemies will do anything to end his involvement in the investigation.
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When Brett Cain’s second novel came out, I was a bit hesitant to pick it up because how his first novel Whiteout ended. But I was looking for a book on CD to listen to that I haven’t read yet and this was one of the options. So I decided to give it a chance.
Out By Night is the second installment to the Frank Sawyer series. So if you want a better understanding of Frank Sawyer, then I recommend that you start with Whiteout. But, you can always read this book first. The author does a good job at setting up who Frank is. The mysteries do not connect from one book or the other.
The mystery in this book was good. It does cover some religious aspects too as Frank Sawyer is a returned missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But, you don’t have to be a believer of the faith to enjoy this book. I must admit that I almost didn’t like the ending in this book either, but in the very last page it changed my mind. Now I am curious to see what the next book in the Frank Sawyer series would entail.
I recommend this book to those you enjoy a good mystery.
Sawyer is not about to back down to a good fight or to help another person. He happened to be in the “right place at the right time” to assist law enforcement in locating a missing girl. The suspense grows as more girls go missing.
I really enjoyed this book. The suspense and mystery grow and Sawyer and Melanie race to follow the clues to find the missing girls. The book alludes to whom the “bad guys” are, but you do not know for certain until the very end. There were a few surprises thrown in there.
The book also contains a little bit of romance. The MC is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and contains some religious content.
Source: I received a complimentary copy. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.
I was so impressed with Brett Cain’s first book, Whiteout, I knew I had to read his next book, Out By Night. It has the same main character who I really like. He is an adventurer, a good samaritan, and a man of God. Frank, though he is a good man, always seems to find trouble in his wanderings.
This time he winds up in some very nasty business of helping the local authorities hunt down some missing teens that may have been kidnapped. At times. Frank seems larger than life until he gets knocked down really well. This book does discuss God and Frank’s religion being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Any Christian would understand his beliefs and feelings. There is plenty of action and stirring heart-thumping scenes to balance everything out in this novel. Frank reminds me of an action hero that saves the day, but always at his own cost. I enjoyed this novel, its twists and turns, the bad guys, and of course his blooming friendship with Deputy Melanie Clark. It’s nice to have that thrown in too. I’m glad to see this is a series and I look forward to reading the next installment about Frank and his adventures.
This isn’t my normal fare, but I thought I would give it a go. The mystery was good, I am getting the impression I should have read a previous book for the development of the main character. There were a couple of things that seemed too simple, but overall I enjoyed this Latter Day Saint mystery. I would even read another book by this author. The connection between the two main characters felt a little rushed, but as it didn’t really resolve, there is definite room for growth there. If you like mystery/crime stories, I would recommend it.
I love clean suspense, you know where there’s a lot of mystery, tension, and build up in the story but no detailed and gruesome descriptions of the acts of violence and no vulgar language. I can do without either of those things, so I like when I find new authors in the clean mystery/suspense/thriller genre. I think I found another one when I took the opportunity to read this book.
Returned missionary Frank Sawyer, who goes by Sawyer, is hitchhiking his way to California to visit some of his former missionary companions when he rescues a kitten from a ditch, then the local police stop, question him, then give him a ride into town. Turns out the rescued kitten belongs to a young girl who’s run away from home. While discussing where Sawyer’s headed, he finds out that Deputy Melanie Clark is the sister to the missionary companion he’s going to visit, but the companion is now married and lives in Utah. While Sawyer’s in town another teenage girl runs away, which makes Sawyer suspicious. Meanwhile it seems Sawyer’s made an enemy of the son of the local quarry owner. Why does the guy want Sawyer to leave town so badly?
This book is written in the first person, so everything is from Sawyer’s viewpoint. I thought the story moved kind of slowly at first–when Sawyer’s explaining why he’s hitchhiking and where he’s going. Once he gets into the town and involves himself in the investigation of the missing girls it moves at a faster pace.
Sawyer is a different kind of character than I’ve read about before. He’s a religious guy, who served a 2 year mission in Peru and speaks Spanish, he no longer owns a car, he doesn’t like using guns, but has boxed and has martial arts training which he uses when needed. I also think he’s kind of nerdy, but Sawyer doesn’t see himself that way. He’s also a pretty observant guy and looks at situations differently so he sees things others may have missed.
The story drew me in and I wanted to find out what happened to the girls and who was behind it all. Well, it wasn’t who I thought it was (it rarely is). After reading this book, I’ll check out the author’s first book Whiteout because it sounds pretty good.
I was very engaged in the mystery aspect of the novel (young girls being kidnapped) but there was a lot of inner dialogue from the main character about things that didn’t really pertain to the story at all. This really slowed the pace of the story and made it difficult to stay interested at times. Overall, a creative story with some great plot twists but a little wordy.
Overall Rating: 4 stars
Story Rating: 4 stars
Narrator-Jason Tatom: 4 stars
I do not want to give away the plot, so I will just tell you what I thought of this book.
What engaged me:
• This was a Christian mystery. The main character, Sawyer, was a returned missionary who served in Peru for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
• Jami, a teenage girl, was missing under suspicious circumstances. Who kidnapped Jami was the mystery that needed solving. This premise caught my interest right away and kept my attention until the very end of this novel.
• There were many twists and turns to this plot, which kept my interest. This book was not predictable.
• Sawyer had boxing and martial arts training. There were lots of action and fight scenes within the storyline. The fight scenes were not graphic or gory.
• There was a clean romance in this story.
• There were no swear words used, which I appreciated.
This was an enjoyable read and I recommend this novel to mystery and action book lovers.