NIGHT WILL FIND YOU - Julia Heaberlin

5 stars

My second 5 star read from Heaberlin. Welcome to the Amy's Favorites pile.

Night Will Find You is one of those novels that I love best—a multi-genre baby. A heavy dose of mystery/thriller, a dash of speculative intrigue, a dollop of romantic tension, a spin of literary fiction style. A lil' bit o' everything, you know?
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Vivvy Bouchet is an astrophysicist looking for signs of life in the night sky. She's grounded in science, loaded with reality—but she has a poorly kept secret. Vivvy can also see things she's never been able to explain. From visions to feelings to ghosts impressions, Vivvy has always existed in the contradictory push/pull of science vs. the unexplained.

A boy that she saved grew up into a Texan cop, and he knows about her gift. When the girls are missing or their killers can't be found, he asks Vivvy to help. Vivvy can't say no; it's complicated.

But now, her gifts and relative anonymity are about to go up in smoke—the latest case she's pulled in to unofficially help with is a famous case of a missing little girl that captured the Texas public and remained unsolved.

Jesse Sharp, the dangerous-edged detective in charge, doesn't want Vivvy's help. Vivvy doesn't want Jesse Sharp—he sees things too clearly, and he's pointed right at Vivvy.

Neither Jesse nor Vivvy are going to get their way, as the case unfolds around them both like a death trap. Vivvy's convinced the girl is alive, and now it's time to prove it. Jesse thinks Vivvy is full of B.S., but he's out of options. Time to roll the tape...

When I say I DEVOURED this book, I mean it. I read it in almost one, uninterrupted sitting at the very end of a lackluster reading year where nothing—and I mean NOTHING—held my attention in book form. I was in the slump to end all slumps, and nothing was shaking it. Heaberlin's novel caught me, and I'm thrilled to say it kept me, too. I loved it from the top down.

The writing is gorgeous. The characters are compelling and believably messy. The plot itself is complex, like Heaberlin's other novel I've read (We Are All the Same in the Dark). The Texas setting is richly contextualized for this non-Southern reader. I truly don't have anything negative to say, besides a very small caveat (see below).

Don't miss this one, it's well worth the read.

Small caveat to this review: There are some complicated elements here that exist outside of the story’s ecosystem—the Elon Musk and DeGrasse Tyson references, in particular, are aging badly since its pub date in 2023—but outside of the real world retroactive gate-crashing, this is a novel I would consider near perfect in every way.