Night Games

Lt. Hastings #14

by Collin Wilcox

Lt. Frank Hastings of the Homicide department, investigates the murder of James Haney, who was apparently killed when he surprised a burglar in the midst of a robbery

Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Aka Carter Wick

Collin Wilcox was an American mystery writer.

Born in Detroit, Michigan, his first book was The Black Door (1967), featuring a sleuth possessing extrasensory perception. His major series of novels was about Lieutenant Frank Hastings of the San Francisco Police Department. Titles in the Hastings series included Hire a Hangman, Dead Aim, Hiding Place, Long Way Down and Stalking Horse. Two of his last books, Full Circle and Find Her a Grave, featured a new hero-sleuth, Alan Bernhardt, an eccentric theater director. Wilcox also published under the pseudonym "Carter Wick".

Wilcox's most famous series-detective was the television character Sam McCloud, a New Mexico deputy solving New York crime. The "urban cowboy" was played by Dennis Weaver in the 1970-1977 TV series McCloud. Wilcox wrote three novelizations based on scripts from the series: McCloud (1973), The New Mexican Connection (1974), and The Park Avenue Executioner (1975).

Reviews

[Jared Castiglione · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up on the sale rack at the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City last December. I knew nothing about the author, or the publisher, and I certainly hadn’t realized it was book #14 in a series. But it captivated me and the price was right too! And, if anyone has ever been to that magnificent bookshop, you’ll know you can even get your purchase stamped with their logo, which I totally did.
I was in NYC that weekend to see Jagged Little Pill on Broadway. It was the same weekend as the Santa Convention which turned into a running gag... anywhere I went a group of drunk and horny Santas of both sexes were prancing around the city in skimpy red or green and white cloth.
I found it fitting that now having read this book that I bought it that very weekend. This book has a sexual undercurrent that’s pervasive throughout. It’s a well crafted police procedural that could easily have taken place in NYC as opposed to San Francisco. I’ll look for others in the series, probably trying to find #1 next. I whole heartedly recommend going to see Jagged Little Pill when it reopens on Broadway, and I recommend Night Games as well! I’d skip the Santa Convention...

[L. Penn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Firstly, I've had this book for some time on my shelf and had no inkling it was part of a series. Now looking back, it does read like a regular TV cop-show, somewhere mid-series. The angled twist, the dialogue, the characters of another lavishly homed community and that gritty beat Detective trying to get to yet another bottom-end seemingly pointless robbery/homicide. Lieutenant Hasting's comes across as any other cop, hard bitten to stories that appear open and shut, but dig deeper and stuff hits the fan.
All the players, from the wife Katherine, to the murder victim; her husband, James, and subsequent suspects, friends, butlers, relations, it reads like I mentioned before; a TV cop-show. Clean, nice, easy to follow, writing with an adjective to everything, and an ending I admit was pretty satisfactory. A fine cop-read indeed.

[Stefani Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short read, my first reading of a detective mystery murder. I enjoyed the book and the genre.
However, this book's target audience appeared to be aimed a teenaged boys.
There was gratuitous sexual decriptions, that didn't actually add to the enrichement of the story line.
And the ending and unveiling of the reason for the murder was very dark and distrubing:/

moving on to another book,
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