Jayne Ann Krentz All Night Long

All Night Long

Jayne Ann Krentz

Putnam, Jan 2006, $24.95, 416 pp.

ISBN 0399153055

In the small Northern California town of Dunsley, Irene Stenson missed curfew because her best friend Pamela Webb deliberately kept her out late. When she finally arrives home she sees the murdered bodies of her parents on the kitchen floor. Their deaths were deemed murder-suicide and Irene left town and never returned or spoke to Pamela.

Seventeen years later, Pamela e-mails Irene asking her to come back to Dunsley because she has something important to tell her. She checks in at the Sunrise on the Lake Lodge and is immediately attracted to the owner Luke Danner who finds himself very interested in his boarder. When Irene arrives at Pamela's house, she finds her former friend dead, a bottle of empty pills and liquor near the body. The sheriff rules it a suicide but from the urgency of Pamela's message Irene thinks she was murdered. As a reporter she starts her own investigation because she believes there is a link between her parents' deaths and Pamela's demise. Luke helps her and saves her life quite a few times because it is obvious someone is willing to kill to keep Pamela's secret hidden.

A Jayne Ann Krentz novel is always a joy too read and ALL NIGHT LONG is no exception. The protagonists are drawn true to life and are not as quirky as Ms. Krentz's characters usually are but that is because they are dealing with dark, troubling and dangerous situations and emotions. The mystery is very complex and filled with red herrings and unusual twists and turns. There is a secondary character, one of Luke's brothers, who deserves his own story.

Harriet Klausner