I think this is what they call romantic suspense. Sort of.

Whatever it is, it's escape reading, to be tossed aside and forgotten as soon as it is read. Yet I will give a little synopsis here, mainly to remind myself what it was about.

Eleanor Porter ("Ellie") is 30 and just starting to make her life over after a hurtful breakup. After being dumped by a man she had fallen deeply for, she landed in a mental hospital for a while. She pulls herself together, starts caring for herself, and finally lands a job as a "night lawyer".

The night lawyer reviews articles for a newspaper, to reduce the potential for legal troubles. (I wonder how many newspapers have one of these.) She works until about ten at night, then heads home by train and foot. During the day, Ellie runs, works out, does her shopping, goes to karate classes, and so forth. She lives on the Isle of Dogs, a part of London that is a peninsula, not actually an island.

One day Ellie happens upon a man who looks oddly familiar but she can't place him. He even calls her name, but she takes off. She starts to see him everywhere. Then she starts to receive what appear to be threatening notes from him. Alluding to a time in her past. We are treated to several chapters about this man, Carl, presumably intended to build suspense.

Ellie lives with the belief that she killed her father. She tries to talk to her cold mother about it, but her mother refuses. Her father's death, which happened when she was eight years old, haunts her, increases her feelings of self-doubt and guilt. This strange man brings up things from her past that she no longer recalls, however, and she wonders what she may have forgotten about that time so long ago.

Meanwhile, she gets to know her next-door neighbor a little, because the young woman plays music too loud too late at night. When Jessica and her boyfriend Tull get into a fight, it's pretty obvious and Ellie tries to help Jess, causing some resentment in Tull.

Meanwhile, back at the office, Ellie is surprised one day to see her former boyfriend Will. He is there as a consultant on some reporter's series. He takes note of Ellie's new improved look and signals his appreciation. Ellie falls again, never having really gotten over him.

Ellie's sheeplike behavior is, of course, the point of the book. We can guess that she eventually gets over it and becomes strong and self-sufficient. Even so, I could hardly stand her, mooning over Will and getting excited about the smallest compliment from her new coworkers.

And yes, the time comes when she is tested, predictably. Honestly, I would have been disappointed if it hadn't happened. Everything is wrapped up rather neatly in a chapter or five (the chapters are very short).

There are a couple of times when I was brought up short by the unusual reactions of the characters. First, Carl is in a bar, meets and talks to a tourist, then leaves. He does not remember going home. This incident is mentioned in a one-liner. Carl has no other thoughts about it, doesn't worry that he forgot some hours of time. I think his lack of reaction is strange indeed.

Later, Ellie comes home to see her house in a wreck. She is, as noted above, so excited about Will, thinking that he wants her, that the fact that her house was broken into and tossed seems to register not at all. Her lack of reaction struck me as strange, too.

The book works as escape reading. After reading several books that took more energy from me, I welcomed the mindlessness of it, even as I was irritated by Ellie and crew.
( )

When I spotted on the library's new book shelf a book that had just been reviewed in the local Sunday paper's book page a couple of days before, it seemed a sign that I should read it, although I don't normally find the "thriller" or novel of suspense my favorite.

The "night lawyer" is an attorney who examines the stories in a British morning daily paper before it goes to press, making sure nothing in them makes the paper vulnerable to a lawsuit. As a part-time job, with some responsibility, it seems to suit Eleanor Porter, who is recovering from a nervous breakdown apparently caused by a breakup with her married lover. Eleanor's great secret, which has overshadowed her life, is that she feels responsible for the death of her father twenty years before.

A new job is plenty to cope with for most people, but Eleanor has a lot more to contend with. Her young neighbor has gone Goth and has an abusive boyfriend with a coterie of louts who hang about the neighborhood; a tourist has been found murdered not far from Eleanor's Docklands home; her mother and her best friend have strong ideas about how she should run her life; she's going up for a brown belt in karate; her old boyfriend is back and says his wife has left him; and oh yes, it appears that someone is stalking her.

Spring masterfully weaves all the plot points together, using changing points of view in a way that's suspenseful but not annoying. Several plot twists at the end lead to a satisfying conclusion. This is a very good book, with insights into fear, guilt, and victimhood. The characters have a complexity seldom encountered. Strongly recommended. ( )

not as good as the series ( )