The Dying Hour introduces Jason Wade, a rookie crime reporter with The Seattle Mirror, a loner who grew up in the shadow of a brewery in one of the city’s blue-collar neighborhoods. At The Seattle Mirror, he is competing for the single full-time job being offered through the paper’s intense intern program. But unlike the program’s other young reporters, who attended big name schools and worked at … at other big metro dailies, Wade put himself through community college, and lacked the same experience.
Wade struggles with his haunting past as he pursues the story of Karen Harding, a college student whose car was found abandoned on a lonely stretch of highway in the Pacific Northwest. How could this beloved young woman with the altruistic nature simply vanish?
Wade battles mounting odds and cut-throat competition to unearth the truth behind Karen Harding’s disturbing case. Her disappearance is a story he cannot give up, never realizing the toll it could exact from him. The Dying Hour is a bone-chilling, mesmerizing page-turner that introduces readers to an all-too-human young hero who journeys into the darkest regions of the human heart to confront a nightmare.
The International Thriller Writers (ITW), selected The Dying Hour as a finalist for a Thriller Award for Best Paperback Original, 2006.
Rick Mofina is a former journalist who has interviewed murderers on death row, flown over L.A. with the LAPD and patrolled with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police near the Arctic. He’s also reported from the Caribbean, Africa and Kuwait’s border with Iraq. His books have been published in nearly 30 countries, including an illegal translation produced in Iran.
His work has been praised by James Patterson, Dean Koontz, Michael Connelly, Lee Child, Tess Gerritsen, Jeffery Deaver, Sandra Brown, James Rollins, Brad Thor, Nick Stone, David Morrell, Allison Brennan, Heather Graham, Linwood Barclay, Peter Robinson, Håkan Nesser and Kay Hooper.
The Crime Writers of Canada, The International Thriller Writers and The Private Eye Writers of America have listed his titles among the best in crime fiction. As a two-time winner of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award, a three-time Thriller Award finalist and a two-time Shamus Award finalist, the Library Journal calls him, “One of the best thriller writers in the business.”
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Always like books from this author. Characters are engaging.
I love Rick Mofina books!
Rick Mofina is a great writer, you read one of his books and you will read them all.
Did not know there is a series of 3. By author. Enjoyed reading all three (3)
Liked the main character and his story. Flowed well.
Edge of your seat story. Could barely wait to finish it.
Page Turner. Couldn’t put it down
This was a book that I wanted to finish because it held me in the grip of trying to find the murderer, seeing if it was who I predicted would be the killer. Looking to find before he kills again.
I like this book’s main character, I would read more by this author.
Having read a couple of Rick Molfina bbooks in the past I was enjoying this latest one until we were “treated” to a description of the fate of one of the abducted girls. I,m afraid that I had to close the book it was not entertaining or a divertisment
Jason Wade, the underdog at the newspaper gets the night shift on the crime desk. He gets involved in the Karen Harding disappearance and doesn’t let go. He is observant and questioning. He follows the clues from Seattle to Washington to BC. I didn’t want to put this book down until I finished it. I look forward to the next books in this series.
Wow – another great book by Rick Mofina! A bit gruesome, but could be true-to-life, unfortunately. It kept my attention throughout & was definitely a page-turner. The only thing I didn’t like was the bad language that crept in more toward the end, which is always unnecessary.
A story that supports the premise that journalism is a noble professional, that journalists tell the truth and the truth is worth searching for. Jason is to be commended for his tenacity. He doesn’t work for Gannett.
Mofina is always over the top. His bad guys are really bad, his editors as always jerks, his main characters are always the lowly down-trodden. Mofina needs to back off a little. If he wasn’t so over the top, his stories would be much more enjoyable. The plots are always good, but is all the torture really necessary? And, to go to the extent of quoting ancient texts, that I assume he wrote, so he could quote about the acts of torture done to women who were accused of being witches.
Also, I have issues with a door made of railroad ties. Really? A railroad tie is 7 in x 9 in by 8 ft. What kind of hinges would that take?
I’ve read a lot of Mofina. He is always just a little much.
Well written, good character building, but the vilence was too graphic for me. I didn’t finish it.
Let me preface this review by noting that I don’t do thrillers, and especially not those set in contemporary times. In retrospect, I can’t remember why I got this book. Perhaps it was a case of divine intervention that led me to read it because otherwise I would have missed a beautifully crafted book that hooked me in the first chapter and didn’t release me until the end.
The plot is a familiar one: the deranged female-hating male with delusions of grandeur. Not a particular favorite of those of us with female genitalia who happen to live alone. However, there is nothing familiar about the way Moffina weaves his story. The main character, Jason Wade, isn’t in law enforcement; he’s an aspiring reporter trying to carve a niche for himself in a highly competitive world where he doesn’t fit. Although he wants to secure the sole opening in a newspaper that pits him against those with more political pull and connections, he wants to connect the dots and follow a story wherever he goes even more. Although common sense (and my wimpy temperament) told me he was leading me somewhere I didn’t want to go, I followed him anyway.
Right to the horrific climax…which fortunately for me wasn’t quite the end. Moffina gained even more points when he provided an ending that was real in a very special way.
Not finished but enjoying
Rick Mofina is a good author.
I liked the everyman quality of the lead character. He was like someone I’d like to know.
I stopped reading it at 49%. Nuff said.