Summary and Reviews of The 37th Hour by Jodi Compton

The 37th Hour by Jodi Compton

The 37th Hour

by Jodi Compton
  • Critics' Consensus (6):
  • Readers' Rating (2):
  • First Published:
  • Dec 1, 2003, 336 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jan 2005, 352 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

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.

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.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

The Charlotte Observer
A very impressive debut.... Jodi Compton focuses as much on human frailty as on police procedure.

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.

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.

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.

Author Blurb 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.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked The 37th Hour, try these:

  • Speak of the Devil jacket

    Speak of the Devil

    by Richard Hawke

    Published 2007

    About this book

    More by this author

    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.

  • The Forgotten Man jacket

    The Forgotten Man

    by Robert Crais

    Published 2006

    About this book

    More by this author

    A stunning, edge-of-your-seat suspense novel that leads Detective Elvis Cole to the very thing he's always searched for— the dark secrets of his own life and the father he never knew—as well as a brutal killer determined to stop him.


More books by Jodi Compton
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    The Husbands
    by Holly Gramazio
    The Husbands delights in asking: how do we navigate life, love, and choice in a world of never-ending options?

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Girl Falling
    by Hayley Scrivenor

    The USA Today bestselling author of Dirt Creek returns with a story of grief and truth.

  • Book Jacket

    Jane and Dan at the End of the World
    by Colleen Oakley

    Date Night meets Bel Canto in this hilarious tale.

  • Book Jacket

    The Antidote
    by Karen Russell

    A gripping dust bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town.

Who Said...

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

T B S of T F

and be entered to win..