On a chilly Minnesota morning, Sarah comes home to the house she shares with her husband and fellow cop, Michael Shiloh. Shiloh was supposed to be in Virginia, starting his training with the FBI. A seasoned missing-persons investigator, Sarah is used to anxious calls from wives and parents. She's used to the innocent explanations that resolve so many of her cases. But from the moment she learns that he never arrived at Quantico, she feels a terrible foreboding. Now, beneath the bed in which they make love, Sarah finds Shiloh's neatly packed bag. And in that instant the cop in her knows: Her husband has disappeared.
Suddenly Sarah finds herself at the beginning of the kind of investigation she has made so often. The kind that she and her ex-partner, Genevieve, solved routinely -- until a brutal crime stole Genevieve's daughter and ended her career. The kind that pries open family secrets and hidden lives. For Sarah this investigation will mean going back to the beginning, to Shiloh's religion-steeped childhood in Utah, the rift that separated him from his family -- and the one horrifying case that struck them both too close to home. As Sarah turns over more and more unknown ground in her husband's past, she sees her lover and friend change into a stranger before her eyes. And as she moves further down a trail of shocking surprises and bitter revelations, Sarah is about to discover that her worst fear -- that Shiloh is dead -- may be less painful than what she will learn next...
In a novel of runaway tension, Jodi Compton masterfully weaves together the quiet details of everyday life with the moments that can shatter them forever. At once a beguiling mystery and a powerful rumination on family, friendship, and loss, The 37th Hour is a thriller that will catch you off guard at every turn -- instantly compelling and utterly impossible to put down.
San Jose Mercury News The 37th Hour expands beyond the standard mystery to be a complex, multilayered exploration of morality and personal responsibility.... Satisfying.
The New York Times - Marilyn Stasio
Compton dignifies her characters by treating them like complex adults whose problematical relationships can't be resolved by straightening out a few loose facts. ''Everything I knew was wrong,'' Sarah says, after discovering the ''shadow self'' her husband couldn't bring himself to show her. With a murderer at large and Sarah working on her own in the dark, the suspense may be killing, but it isn't cheap. It's the profound terror of knowing you don't know a thing.
The Charlotte Observer
A very impressive debut.... Jodi Compton focuses as much on human frailty as on police procedure.
Library Journal - Jetta Carol Culpepper
The plot twists grow more and more incredible with each page in this impressive debut, the first in a series about Sarah. If in the future Compton sharpens the suspense and adds more depth to her plots, she could compete with writers like John Grisham and John Lescroart. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries.
Publishers Weekly
Readers looking for perky heroines with sassy girlfriends and humorous man problems would best be advised to seek their mysteries elsewhere. Compton's world is complicated, shadowy and violent, with little cheer and only the barest traces of hope and resolution....This is first-class, serious crime fiction.
Kirkus Reviews
Starred Review. A dazzling debut about a missing-persons cop whose husband goes missing.....Watch this writer. She does it all plots intelligently, writes elegantly, and creates characters who compel attention the old-fashioned way-by making you believe in them.
John Lescroart The 37th Hour is not just a masterful debut novel. It is a flat-out masterful work of wrenching suspense. Jodi Compton is a fine, fine writer who will be around for a long time to come.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Ashley Beamma
I think this is a great book to read for young and mature adult readers. It is a great book for anyone I think about the age of 13 to read. It does have some things younger childen might not uderstand! Be sure to buy the book! It's one worth... Read More
In his brilliantly paced and stunningly original debut, Richard Hawke delivers a
tale of flawed and unforgettable people operating at the ends of their ropes.
It's literary suspense that doesn't let go until the last page.
This is one of 2 readalike suggestions for The 37th Hour. Members have full access to all readalikes. If you are a member, please login. To find out more about membership, click here.
A very large book - in number of pages and in content - and every page worth reading. Thoroughly enjoyed this one and her first book on the...
read more
Two Lives is a memoir written by international best-selling author, Vikram Seth. In this interesting and engaging book, Seth writes about his great...
read more
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight...
read more
Judge rules unused Borders gift cards to be worthless(May 23 2013) Borders owes nothing to holders of roughly $210.5 million of gift cards that had not been used by the time the bookstore chain shut down, a Manhattan federal...
Full Story
San Jose Mercury News
John Lescroart
of 5
by Ashley Beamma
Write your own review!
