The protagonist in The Midnight Club is John Stefanovitch, a New York cop confined to a wheelchair after being shot and left for dead by the Grave Dancer. Despite losing his wife to the Grave Dancer on the same chilling night, and undergoing years of rehabilitation, John is still on the force and as determined as ever to get his man.
While John was fighting and clawing back his life, the Grave Dancer was climbing the ladder of success, and is now part of an elite and secretive international unit of organised crime lords, otherwise known as the Midnight Club.
I thoroughly enjoyed having a male protagonist in a wheelchair who was attractive, strong, protective and driven without feeling sorry for himself or drinking himself into oblivion. Patterson steers clear of all the possible traps and cliches here, which makes The Midnight Club feel like a fresh piece of writing, despite it being 23 years old.
There are references to the twin towers and a few other things that remind the reader of the passage of time however on the whole, this was an enjoyable crime novel with a very likeable good guy in New York cop John Stefanovitch and an equally well written bad guy.
My rating = ***
Carpe Librum!
