Instruments of Night

by Thomas H. Cook

Thomas Cook is one of today's most acclaimed writers of psychological thrillers, penning hypnotic tales of forbidden love and devastating secrets. Now he has written an unforgettable novel that weaves one man's tortured life with a deadly mystery that spans five decades....

Riverwood is an artists' community in the Hudson River valley, a serene place where writers can perfect their craft. But for all its beauty and isolation, it was once touched by a terrible crime--the murder of a teenage girl who lived on the estate fifty years ago.  Faye Harrison's killer was never caught--and now her dying mother is desperate to learn the truth about her daughter's murder.

Enter Paul Graves, a writer who draws upon the pain of his own tragic past to write haunting tales of mystery. Graves has been summoned to Riverwood for an unusual to apply the art of fiction to a crime that was real, and then write a story that will answer the questions that keep Faye's mother from a peaceful death. Just a story. It doesn't have to be true. Or does it?

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Thriller, Suspense, Mystery Thriller, Crime, Horror

336 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published November 3, 1998

About the author

There is more than one author with this name on Goodreads.

Thomas H. Cook has been praised by critics for his attention to psychology and the lyrical nature of his prose. He is the author of more than 30 critically-acclaimed fiction books, including works of true crime. Cook published his first novel, Blood Innocents, in 1980. Cook published steadily through the 1980s, penning such works as the Frank Clemons trilogy, a series of mysteries starring a jaded cop.

He found breakout success with The Chatham School Affair (1996), which won an Edgar Award for best novel. Besides mysteries, Cook has written two true-crime books including the Edgar-nominated Blood Echoes (1993). He lives and works in New York City.

Awards
Edgar Allan Poe – Best Novel – The Chatham School Affair
Barry Award – Best Novel – Red Leaves
Martin Beck Award of the Swedish Academy of Detection – The Chatham School Affair
Martin Beck Award of the Swedish Academy of Detection – Red Leaves
Herodotus Prize – Fatherhood

Reviews

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

A favorite mystery writer for me. His writing style is most often literary and cerebral. This mystery was dark, sometimes morbid and with some gothic elements. It was still a good story...well-written and suspenseful.

[Christie (The Ludic Reader) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up Instruments of Night on a Friday night and read about 30 pages. It was late when I started and so eventually my eyes gave out. On Saturday I picked it up again and didn’t put it down until I finished – with a gasp, I must add – the book. I stumbled on Cook totally by accident three or four years back. I picked up, at a second hand bookstore, his novel Breakheart Hill and read these lines: “This is the darkest story I ever heard and all my life I have labored not to tell it.” Hooked.

Instruments of Night is the fifth novel I’ve read by Cook. It’s the story of writer Paul Graves, a man who has spent his career writing about the horrible dance between serial killer and sadist Kessler (and his accomplice, Sykes) and the man who has spent his career chasing him, Detective Slovak. Instruments of Night operates on more than one level, though. Graves has almost completed the 14th installment of his series when he is invited to upstate New York to meet with Allison Davies, mistress of an estate known as Riverwood. Fifty years ago, Allison’s best friend, Faye, was murdered on the grounds and now Allison wants Paul to “imagine what happened to Faye. And why.”

But that’s not all. Paul Graves is a tortured man. His own past is filled with ghosts, horrible ghosts. He is a beautifully nuanced character and I particularly admired the glimpse we got into his head as a writer. Perhaps Cook was revealing a little bit about himself there, I don’t know, but Paul’s imagination allowed him to write scenes, and adjust them as needed, on the fly. Using this technique, he attempts to solve the question of who killed Faye.

The way Cook juggled the three threads of this story: the mystery of Faye’s death, the stand-off between Kessler and Slovak and the past that is creeping up on Paul is nothing short of amazing. But Cook is an accomplished writer. And this is literature. Truly. Page-turning, white-knuckling, horrifying literature. In every book I’ve read by him, I’ve been amazed at how complex his characters are and Paul is no exception.

If you haven’t read Cook yet, I beg you to give him a go. He’s fabulous!

[Bettye McKee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book many years ago, my first Thomas H. Cook book. It was so disturbing that I couldn't get it out of my mind. By the time I finished the book, I was convinced that Thomas H. Cook was the greatest writer the world has ever known. I've been a fan ever since.

I think it's time to read it again.

[Chak · Rating 5 out of 5]

(No Spoilers.) For once, the reviews and praises boasted by the book are true. This is a great book; disturbing and emotionally evoking. The conclusion floored me and lingered on. I re-read the last two chapters and savored the impact. Thomas H. Cook - what an author! In the last two months, among other mystery novels, I have read Michael Connelly's 'The Black Echo' and Minette Walters' 'The Sculptress', both award-winning books and highly praised. And Thomas H. Cook's 'Instruments of Night' ranked above these, hands down.

[TiffanyBooksandLife · Rating 5 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐⭐🌠 4,5/5

¿Qué harías si te ofrecen escribir un libro sobre un asesinato real?

«Instrumentos de la noche» de Thomas H. Cook es un Thriller que tiene como protagonista a Paul Graves, un escritor de novelas policiales donde sus libros tiene personajes bastante reales que conocerán a medida que vayan avanzando con la historia (además de la vida del mismo Graves 😉), pero no quiero detenerme en ese asunto y generales algún Spoiler porque en realidad estaría buenísimo que lo descubrieran ustedes 😎

Mejor vamos a lo que en realidad gira la trama de este libro y es el misterio de un asesinato de una joven llamada Faye Harrison. La mejor amiga de Faye llama a Paul para que le de otro cierre al caso de Faye que quedó sin un culpable (o casi) porque a medida que Paul se va involucrando iremos descubriendo otros misterios que no solo involucran al caso de Faye.

Imagínense que Faye fue encontrada muerta el 26 de agosto de 1946 (y no digo más 🙅🏻‍♀️) esa época los puede llevar a pensar en muchos sucesos y "gente" no muy agradable.
Es una libro fantástico para todos aquellos lectores que amamos este tipo de género 🖤 cada capítulo van a ir encontrando algún que otros secretos de los que no podrías imaginar y ni hablar del final. Al principio se te da una pequeña sospecha pero junto a Paul vas encontrando otros tipos de pistas, lo cual se te hace un poquito imposible pensar lo que lo pudo haber sucedido con la víctima.

Lo que si me dio un poco de injusticia es el caso del mismo Paul Graves que se los dejó de tarea para que lo descubran cuando lean el libro 🤫 y me van a entender 😬

"A veces tienes que hacer algo porque si no lo haces tu propia oscuridad te abruma."

Y con esta frase les recomiendo esta genial novela. No sólo para lo que amamos el género negro sino que también para aquellos/as lectores/as que aman esos libros imposibles de soltar y que al final te dejan con ganas de seguir leyendo 📚

[AC · Rating 5 out of 5]

A damned good book. Twisty, dark, intelligent — very well written, often lyrically….

[Ellen Reese · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb

Another amazing novel by Thomas Cook. Layers of mystery colored by melancholy. A harrowing story. This one kept me glued to every word until the end.

[Rob Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

First, a contemplation on mysteries in general. As I've gotten older (59) and read many, many books in this genre, I've found it harder to find a really great mystery, though I continue to read many very good ones. In my youth, I was more easily satisfied by them.

Perhaps my partial mystery ennui results from growing accustomed to the genre's repeated structures and characterizations: protagonist/detective who is haunted by their past and/or who has preternatural deductive abilities; the cast of characters, most of whom are up to some brand of fishiness that seems to give them motive; the twisty-turny plots that sometimes require more coincidence or ignoring of reality than my left brain is wont to forgive.

So, "Instruments of Night". Despite (or perhaps because of) having many of the above prototypical characteristics, it is engaging and page-turning. The somewhat aptly named protagonist, Paul Graves, is not a detective but a writer who is haunted by a horrible event in his past that he sublimates into his stories and characters, even as he lives a stark, isolated existence. Graves's past and his fictions become intertwined with the long-ago murder he is asked to explore, giving the story a cool meta-aspect as he and the Watson he picks up along the way constantly re-write the narrative while trying to imagine who might have killed a teenage girl 4o-ish years earlier.

The three parallel plots--what happened to Paul in his childhood; the death of the girl; and the relationship between the two amateur detectives--unwind at an appealing pace and with unexpected, surprising revelations.

Some things that, early on in my reading, I thought were weaknesses (oversights on the part of the author) turned out to be great strengths (he had thought some things through more carefully than I had expected). Others were just weaknesses, e.g., some of the events the latter-day detectives uncover would certainly have left clues that the earlier investigators would have found (I don't want to give any spoilers so won't go into more details than that), but these are just ignored by the author. Also, the dialogue often feels utilitarian and clunky, for example, but not limited to, Edward Davies's extended monologue on pp. 239-242 in the paperback.

Cook excels at creating moody atmospheres and psychologically tormented characters caught up in twisted events. If that sounds narratively appealing, this book should (mostly) work for you.

[Barbara Nutting · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unbelievably brilliant!! I felt the ghost of Agatha Christie in the beginning of this book and the horror of Stephen King as I read on. Mr Cook has outdone himself with this one. (#16 for me).

[Jonas Santiago · Rating 3 out of 5]

Segundo libro que leo de este autor. No fue lo mejor del mundo pero debo reconocer que fue MUCHISIMO mejor que "El misterio de la laguna negra".

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was somewhat disappointed in this Cook. After two simply amazing ones (that I read out of "order") this one is more like a traditional mystery.

An imaginative but reclusive writer is asked to come to a writers' colony and write a story that will satisfy the mother of Faye who was murdered 50 years before. Everyone "knew" who did it, but the mother had never accepted it.

So Paul Graves arrives at Riverwood and begins his investigation.

Paul has secrets in his past that have made him reclusive and an extremely imaginative writer. His series pits a detective, Slovak, against an extreme villain who revels in pain and torture, but who has it performed by a minion named Sykes.

Graves's parents were killed in an auto accident when he was 12 and his sister was brutally murdered a year later. Paul claimed to have been asleep in the small garden a mile from the house and had not witnessed his sister's death. However, he had.

Asked only to write an imaginative but believable story for Faye's mother, Paul becomes more interested in finding out who actually killed her. He is aided in his quest by Eleanor, a playwright who is also at the colony.

This is where it becomes somewhat unbelievable for me. Paul is so reclusive, he has never formed a friendship and doesn't leave the small apartment he has except for short errands. He doesn't reach out to other people. But he becomes interested in Eleanor and doesn't like the idea of leaving her when he makes the decision to go. Also, it is Eleanor's perceptions and logic that lead them on the path to the discovery.

And then there's that. There is a true "ending" to this book whereas the other 2 I've read were quite ambiguous.

Not that the book was badly written or was an uninteresting plot. But is was too predictable for me.

[Intplibrarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book so much, I went out and got another by the same author the day after finishing it.[return][return]Having read some other reviews, I agree that it IS graphically violent in parts, though that violence is a large part of why everything else happens the way it does and how the characters become the people they are. [return][return]There are (at least) two big twists in the plot. One could have been predictable if I'd put the book down long enough to really think about it, but the other is just completely out of left field. Wait... I really shouldn't use sports analogies. lol. It's completely unexpected but it doesn't seem contrived. (Although I guess everything in a novel actually *is* contrived.) [return][return]It's part mystery, part horror/thriller, and I got tears in my eyes at the end. I'm so glad I picked up this book randomly and that the author has written enough other books to keep me going for a little while.

[B.A. Irons · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has got to be one of my favorites, if not the favorite. The way Cook sows horror so fragile like a spider web into the empty fields and lonely houses. How he describes horror so terrifying you cannot even face it.
The horrors in this book are not monsters lurking from under the bed, or come by as blood covered axes. The real horrors, as Cook so expertly goes on to show are in the mind. And there is no corner in your mind you can escape yourself.
You can very well run, but you cannot hide.
This book has stayed with me all these years and I doubt it will never let go. It's haunting in the truest form.

[Jeanette · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was nearly excellent in the psychological study sense- and not just of the narrator, either. And also an interesting exercise in looking at the same thing and observing or interpreting that exact nuance of detail of that "reality" quite differently. And yet it was also too blood drip chewy redundant with the torture details for me. Didn't realize Cook had played this heavily into the over the top horror a la Stephen King brand. Less of that and a less miserable protagonist and it would have been a 4.

[Alex Mathew · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent psychological thriller from ever reliable Cook with high levels of suspense as well as high quality literary writing intact without in any way affecting the pace, depth in characterization.

[Sandi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This a hard book to rate because, while it was well written and very compelling, it was also very dark and disturbing. The plot was perhaps somewhat far fetched, especially the set up, the narrative though moved along at a brisk pace and the ending was well executed.

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

A creepy story... The type that keeps you up at night. I couldn't put it down but at the same time didn't want to continue reading due to the graphic and terrifying images.

[Vicki G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely shocking ending

[Carol Breaux · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just when I thought I knew where the story was I going I was wrong! Couldn't wait to get to the end.

[Sarah Narit · Rating 5 out of 5]

mysterious and creepy as hell but you couldn't put it down until you come to the end. amazing.

[Santosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

First from Thomas H. Cook for me. An engaging psychological mystery with a noir theme.

[Megan Peters · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a little hard to get into in the beginning because you're reading three story lines at the same time: modern day Graves' life, his childhood, and also the world of the characters he writes about. Also, he is constantly imagining his characters in the real world. It takes a little to get used to the writing style, though once you become familiar with the cast of characters, it becomes easier.

Graves is the author of a series of murder mysteries, called to the home of a rich family to write a story based on the murder of a teenage girl that happened there fifty years ago, all while dealing with his own emotional baggage. In the end, however, writing a story is not enough to satisfy his curiosity and he decides to dig up the facts and solve the murder. I'm glad he figured it out because I wouldn't have wanted to be left hanging about who had actually done it.

The plot really picks up about three quarters of the way through when another guest at the home, a playwright, begins helping him in his task. I liked her character, she was sharp as a tack!

The last few chapters really threw me for a loop... there was quite a shocker in there (but I won't spoil it for you!). I honestly didn't see that one coming!

[Abbe]

SUMMARY:
Looking out over the city, imagining its once-coal-blackened spires, he knew that he did it to keep his distance, that he set his books back in time because it was only in that vanished place, where the smell of ginger nuts hung in the air and horse-drawn water wagons sprayed the cobblestone streets, that he felt truly safe.It was nearly dawn, and from the narrow terrace of his apartment, Graves could see a faint light building in the east. He'd been up all night, typing furiously, following Detective Slovak through the spectral back streets of gaslight New York, the two of them--hero and creator--relentlessly pursuing Kessler from one seedy haunt to the next, the groggeries of Five Points, the whorehouses of the Tenderloin, its boy bars and child brothels, watching as Kessler's black coat slipped around a jagged brick corner or disappeared into a thick, concealing bank of nineteenth-century fog. Together, they'd questioned bill stickers and news hawkers and a noisy gaggle of hot-corn girls. They'd dodged rubberneck buses and hansom cabs and crouched in the steamy darkness of the Black Maria. For a time they'd even lingered with a "model artist" who'd just come from posing nude for a roomful of gawking strangers, Slovak mournfully aware of the woman's fate, his dark eyes watching silently as her youth and beauty dripped away, her life a melting candle. They'd finally ended up on the rooftop of a five-story tenement near the river. Slovak teetered at the brink of it as he searched the empty fire escape, the deserted street below, amazed that Kessler had done it again, disappeared without a trace. It was as if he'd found some slit in the air, slipped through it into a world behind this world, where he reveled in the terror he created.Graves glanced back into his apartment. The chaos that had accumulated during the night was spread throughout the room, small white cartons of Chinese food, dirty cups and glasses, a desk strewn with papers, his ancient manual typewriter resting heavily at the eye of it all. Compared to the sleek computer screens and ergonomic keyboards most other writers now used, the typewriter looked like a perverse relic of the Inquisition, a mechanical thumbscrew or some other infinitely refined instrument of medieval torture. Once, at an exhibition of such artifacts, Graves had seen a dagger made in the form of a crucifix, its handle cut in the shape of Christ's body to provide a better grip. Years later he'd written a scene in which Kessler had pressed an identical weapon into Sykes' trembling hand, forced him to draw it slowly across the sagging folds of an old woman's throat. Sykes. Kessler's cowering sidekick. The shivering, panicked instrument of Kessler's will.Graves took a sip of coffee and let his eyes drift out over the East River, the bridges that spanned its gray waters, cars moving back and forth on them like ants along a narrow twig. Within an hour traffic would become an unbroken stream, the noise of the city steadily increasing down below, so that even from his high aerie, perched like an eagle's nest on the fortieth floor, he'd have to close the windows to keep it out.It was nearly five hours before he had to catch a bus upstate, to the Riverwood Colony, where he'd been invited to spend the weekend. He'd need to get a little rest before then, since his mind was too easily alarmed by changing scenes, distant voices, unfamiliar smells for him ever to sleep in transit. Instead, he'd stare out the bus window, alert and edgy, as towns and villages flashed by, inventing tales as he went along. Passing an empty field, he might suddenly envision the moldering bones of some once-desperate girl, a runaway who'd knocked at the wrong door a hundred years before, young and vulnerable, pale and hungry, wrapped in a threadbare woolen shawl, snowflakes clinging to her lustrous hair, her small, childlike voice barely audible above the howl of the wind: I'm so sorry to disturb you, sir, but might I warm myself beside your fire? He could see the man beyond the door, imagine what he imagined, her quivering white breasts, the cold-stiffened nipples, feel his fingers probing the latch as he drew back to let her in, his voice, sweet, unthreatening, Of course, my dear, come in.It was always the isolated farmhouses that called up the most dreadful scenes. Graves knew firsthand the horror that could befall them, how vulnerable they were to sudden violence and death. Once, edging close to the forbidden, he'd actually described a young woman's murder in such a place, Kessler, the arch villain in all of Graves' books, directing Sykes through the brutal ritual while Slovak, Graves' tireless hero, knowing where Kessler was, what he was doing, and desperate to stop him, had pounded up the flickering, smoke-filled aisles of a stranded snowbound train, panting heavily by the time he'd finally reached the engine. But once there, he'd found the engineer too terrified by the storm to press onward, so that once again Kessler had escaped due to some unexpected cowardice, fear the servant upon which evil could most confidently rely. It was a circumstance often repeated in Graves' books, one of his abiding themes.Graves drew in a breath and felt a wave of exhaustion settle over him. He knew where the weariness had come from and why it was so heavy. He and Slovak had just trudged up five flights of stairs, slammed through a thick wooden door, and raced across a wide black roof, arriving breathless and exhausted at its edge.Now, looking out over the city, it seemed strange to Graves that within an instant he had transported himself to this quiet terrace where he stood, calmly sipping tepid coffee in the early morning light while in the world of his creation, Slovak remained on the other side of town, thirty blocks away in space and more than a century distant in time, staring out over the same enigmatic web of streets and rooftops as Kessler crept up from the rear, grinning as he drew the little silver derringer from beneath his coat, good and evil about to face each other squarely in the dawning light.From the Paperback edition.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Years ago I actually met Thomas Cook at a book fair q & a. I found him to be an attractive, intelligent, personable man with a quick smile. It is hard to imagine such a man could write such darkness. If you haven't read any of his novels, I would highly suggest you do so. While they are typically mysteries, and some shun that genre, they are so much more. Beautifully descriptive, and with a true depth to his characters, I am sure you will be sitting up late at night bleary-eyed trying to see what happens...spoiler alert kinda, you will almost always be surprised.
This particular book was also a page turner, but I have to say it was too dark for me. I don't read horror and have no true knowledge of it so comparing this novel to that genre is no doubt ignorant of me, yet I have to say that is the word I would use to describe it. Not a detail person, I didn't see the clue of the outcome as I should have. Personally I would have left it on the shelf had I known what I was going to read. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't read it, just know it is disturbing, which is the only reason I gave it only three stars.

[Jairo Fruchtengarten · Rating 3 out of 5]

Talvez Paul Graves seja um dos personagens mais interessantes que já li em livros de estilo policial: ao invés de um sagaz detetive que tenta desvendar o caso, tem-se um escritor que é atormentado pelas suas tragédias familiares e as usa como inspiração para os personagens de seus livros.

E o problema de "Instrumentos da Noite" começa justamente por não explorar tão bem esse psicológico perturbado de Paul. Em livros de Stephen King, Dean Kontz ou Raphael Montes você compartilha sensações de medo, desconforto e terror ao ler cenas com um realismo fantástico de detalhes, o que Thomas Cook quase sempre não conseguiu fazer nos diversos flashback que intermeiam os relatos atuais da investigação.

Além disso, a família Davies e os moradores de Riverwood são em geral personagens pouco interessantes e, no decorrer do livro, não me senti instigado a tentar descobrir o culpado pela morte Faye Harrison...

O final, apesar de ser de certa forma surpreendente, pareceu um pouco desconectado do resto do livro, logo após uma sequencia de descobertas um pouco difíceis de serem críveis...

[Rita Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

An intriguing approach to telling a story and very well written, but I have a few quibbles. First --- the character of Eleanor. She is the major driving force in the process of discovering what happened in the past, yet we know nothing about her. We only see her through the mind of the protagonist (Paul). Why does she spend so much time "helping" him?

And then there's the ending. I had to read it twice. Was the author really implying what I thought he was implying? Throughout the book it's not always clear what is happening in the "real" world and what is happening in Paul's imagination -- classic Thomas Cook -- and generally I like that about his books, but this ending was a little more vague than usual.

[David Zacarias · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐⭐ R E S E Ñ A ⭐⭐
📖📖 Buenísima 📖📖
Primera novela que leo de este autor la verdad me encantó a pesar de tener un final bueno pero no al nivel de la trama y algo confuso.
El libro nos cuenta sobre un escritor de una saga de crimen que es invitado a un complejo de cabañas para vacacionar, en las afuera de New York , algo para él raro porque no tiene vida social, al llegar sabra el verdader motivo de la invitación, esto más los malos recuerdos que le vienen a la mente de cuando era niño harán de la historia muy atrapante , además del dinamismo cómo está narrado.
Si te gustan los trhiller este es una excelente opción

[Ezequiel_30 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es el primer libro que leo del autor y me sorprendió gratamente, si bien los primeros capítulos pueden ser lentos una vez empezada la investigación del caso el libro se hace mucho mas ágil y las varias hipótesis sobre lo que paso con el asesinato son muy interesantes,
Lo que mas me gusto fue la resolución del caso, muy original.
Lectura Recomendada

[David Hogg · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the first few pages, I was ready to put this down. It appeared to be formulaic, and the language needs some editing (way too many words, to paraphrase "Amadeus"), but I stuck with it, and was rewarded in the end with a few twists and turns that I didn't see coming.

[Benyi Holstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

Estuvo bueno, mantuvo la resolución del crimen hasta casi al final sin que uno pudiera adivinarlo.
Aún así no fue una lectura que me haya fascinado. Las teorías y plot twist del final, las últimas 50 páginas, fue como too much. Mucha info toda de golpe.