The Other Side of Midnight by Sidney Sheldon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Being somewhere in the middle of the most recent Man Booker Prize winner at the moment and finding it decidedly uncompelling, I needed an antidote stat. And what better than this sordid potboiler, rediscovered on my shelves during a recent book purge? I always expect derision when I tell people of my Sidney Sheldon love, but oddly, it never comes. At least, not to my face. Perhaps this review will break the rule? Sheldon is a marvelous writer. The lessons to be learned from reading him are long – provided you’re looking for a bestselling formula that set the world’s pulse racing nearly forty years ago. Punchy, spare and in no way florid, unlike many of his contemporaries, not a page is wasted. The plot is constantly, ingeniously furthered at a driving pace. It’s very much of its time, yet it’s a time well worth visiting. ‘The Other Side of Midnight’ is a jet-set sort of novel, making one think of the doomed 70s love affairs of Taylor and Burton, Jackie and Onassis. Glamorous, damaged types flit about the globe in search of thrills, revenge or redemption. The central triangle of Noelle, Larry and Catherine is riveting, especially Noelle’s dizzying descent into vengeance-fueled madness. There’s one especially shattering, shocking chapter somewhere in middle that I shan’t spoil, but needless to say, four decades on, it still packs a wallop. I doff my hat to Mr Sheldon. He was indeed a master of his game.
