Night Sins

by Tami Hoag

A small, quiet Minnesota town where crime doesn’t happen just experienced its worst nightmare- the disappearance of a young boy without witnesses or clues with only a taunting note left behind by the perpetrator.


Tall and trim Police Chief Mitch Holt is the local cop who escaped the big evils of the city only to have them reemerge in his small home town. Agent Megan O’Malley is a tough hard-willed investigator on her first big case. Together they hunt for a kidnapper to protect the families of a united town. Immediately engaging and engrossing I couldn’t put it down. About mid-way through the book I guessed who the suspect would be and for me the rest was just filler until I got to the end.

From the moment they meet, Mitch and Megan engage in an undercurrent of sex and tension that follows them throughout the case. Agent O’Malley was brash and annoying. She decided early on to not sleep with the Chief of Police because it’s hard on the streets for a woman. For the duration of the case O’Malley wavers back and forth and back and forth. I guess it wouldn’t be a story if she stuck to her guns but I found it grating. If a woman doesn’t want to sleep with a man to the detriment of her career then she shouldn’t do it. If a woman decides to sleep with a man knowing the career ramifications then she should accept it and move on. The cat and mouse game these adults play was frustrating for this reader of romance novels.

The characters of Deer Lake, Minnesota are well described especially the family dynamic between the parents of the kidnapped boy. The struggles that they’ve had as a working couple who are unhappy with were they’ve ended up was well written. Hannah and Paul Kirkwood are characters whose story I cared about. Demands of work, marriage, infidelity and anger make them a couple that is complicated and intriguing.

This was my first time reading a Tami Hoag novel. I felt the ending was predictable and anti-climatic with an improbable ending. It wasn’t big on romance and started off fast-paced with suspense but ultimately Ms. Hoag couldn’t maintain that pace throughout.