The Night Nurse by Cole Baxter
Genre: Psychological thriller
Read: 27th December 2022
Published: 27th November 2022
★★★ 3.5 stars
DESCRIPTION:
They seem like angels of mercy. Until you invite them in.
While going through a bitter divorce, Laura moves home to care for her widowed father who suffers from dementia.
Quickly realizing she can’t handle her dad alone, Laura hires nurse Bella and her dementia-specialist brother, Andrei, to look after him. The siblings are the perfect caregivers, effectively handling her father’s needs and mood swings.
Then accidents begin happening around the estate, and her dad takes a drastic turn for the worse. He becomes violent and claims he’s being poisoned. Is it true? Or is his illness causing paranoia?
As Laura tries to get to the truth, she begins to realize that the caregivers are not who they seem, that they may have a sinister agenda of their own. But who are they really? And what do they want?
The answers to these questions are more horrifying than anything Laura could ever have imagined…
MY THOUGHTS:
Of the three books I've read by this author, this is the one I've liked the most. And after reading the three, I have to say that I'm not entirely enamoured by his style though this one was certainly much better than the previous two I tackled. Despite that, I was initially drawn to this one because of the premise which sounded intriguing and the story surrounding the protagonist's father suffering dementia. Admittedly, it sounded an interesting concept.
As a romance writer, Laura Radcliffe had always dreamt of finding that one true love and thought she had found it but after 18 months of marriage and a huge debt accumulated in her name by her ex-husband Jim, she found him to be cheating with one of his 19 year old students. She throws him out and while going through a bitter divorce, she moves back to her childhood home on the sprawling Radcliffe estate to care for her aging father who has dementia. But coming back has not been without its burdens. For years Laura and her little brother Billy had been subjected to physical and emotional abuse at the hands of their mother and being back in her childhood home brings back some of those nightmarish memories, although her mother is now three years dead.
Having been back at the estate for several days, Laura begins to realise that she can't cope with her dad on her own. He is obstructive and cantankerous and she finds it incredibly draining that she is too tired to focus on her own work. So she decides to hire a nurse and caregiver for her father as he needs 24 hour care that she is not equipped to give him.
And then in walk the answer to her prayers. Bella and Andrei Ormond, brother and sister, specialise in caring for dementia patients. And after a week's trial, Laura is more than happy with the service they provide that she hires them and they move in to begin full time care. And for a time, Laura finds the freedom liberating. She is able to concentrate on her writing and get her edits done and even begin seeing a therapist to help her deal with the betrayal of her marriage and the unresolved feelings of the past.
But then little things begin to happen and Laura wonders if she has made the right choice in the pair. Although her father appears to be much more compliant under Bella's care, he also seems to be sleeping a lot more that she rarely sees him. And Andrei is a notorious flirt, taking every opportunity to bat his eyes and attempt to woo Laura. But she is conflicted. Andrei is definitely good-looking...but he's not Sam. Safe dependable Sam, the estate manager who has cared for the Radcliffe estate grounds for over a decade. And then when Sam falls victim to an accident he confides in Laura that he believes someone has been tampering with his equipment. Although he won't tell her who he suspects, it isn't hard to figure out.
Suddenly, things take a rapid turn and begin to rapidly escalate as Laura finds herself becoming her father's full time carer once again before becoming a suspect to murder! Why did she not call the FBI contact she had when police stormed the house? And I felt Angela should have come back with her information before the FBI took over and things were wrapped up. The ending, when it came, was a little rushed and even rather predictable. There was no real twist as you knew who all the players were from the beginning so it wasn't rocket science figuring it all out.
So many others hated Sam's constant use of the term "darlin'". I don't know if that's because it's not entirely PC to refer to women as such these days, but I don't take offence. I found it endearing as it is meant to be. Though I agree it did seem a little repetitive but that, I think, was just part of Sam's nature. He was endearing as is the use of the term.
I loved that the story centred around someone with dementia and how that could be a perfect opportunity to take advantage but I just felt that the rest of it was a little lacking in execution and twists. And there was such opportunity for that ending that simply just concluded. No big twist, no great fanfare...just the end.
Overall, THE NIGHT NURSE was a good read but not a great one as it still has so much room for improvement. I think a solid 3.5 (rounded down to 3) stars is fair as it is still the best of his I have read. Having said that, I don't think I would read another. I just don't think his style fits my taste.
I would like to thank #ColeBaxter, #NetGalley and #InkubatorBooks for an ARC of #TheNightNurse in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
He grew up in New York, where there crime was all around. He decided to turn that into something positive with his fiction.
His stories will have you reading through the night—they are very addictive!
The Perfect Suitor is his first psychological thriller with Inkubator Books.
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