Disappearing Nightly is the first book in the Esther Diamond series by Laura Resnick. It was first published 2006 by Luna Books and I listened to the audiobook from Graphic Audio, narrated by a full cast, music and sound effects. It is a comedy filled with mystery, paranormal and urban fantasy elements.
The story follows the actor Esther Diamond who working as a background actor in a magical show, one night the assistant of the magician vanishes in the box. Yay, for Esther who takes over the role, well, until she finds out that this is one of many vanishes in the same faction. And she gets a warning that she is next. The handsome police Connor Lopez cannot do anything so Esther has to do it herself which leads her to wrestle the 300-year-old Maximillian Zadok, with a hairdryer as her weapon, and joining him as the old wizards tries to find the evil kidnapping the girls, the male stripper and a tiger.
Esther Diamond is hilarious, very active for a female character and no afraid to get her hands dirty. I mean, she stares down a tiger to save someone. I wouldn’t do that for sure. She is also kind of a natural leader, quickly getting the gang together to investigate the murder. Not as smart as those around her but cunning enough to make up for it and she is a good actor. Fake it, until you make it, is pretty much her thing. Don’t know how to fight, fake it and when that doesn’t work, kick and bite until it works. Overall, she is very relatable, feeling like human without feeling like the typical superwoman that often litters literature like mysteries or fantasy.
Her gang is… Well, we have the 300-year old wizard, a drag queen, the grumpy wizard’s assistant in the cellar, the runaway rich boy doing magical shows in secret, a crafter of magical show items who hide illegal immigrants in his addict, a cowboy who got rich from selling condoms along with his daughter. There are some others as well, but as you can imagine. There are plenty of colorful characters showing up along the way. Not many of them as all that large roles, but they are entertaining, which is their main purpose.
The mystery isn’t that amazing. It is clear as day who the culprit is, and I really cannot understand why no one figured it out. I won’t go into it too much, since I can’t without spoiling the plot, but let’s just say that the culprit tries to divert the gang by giving them a false solution, which makes no sense if any of them thought about it.
Well, the mystery, though the driving force of the story, is not the main purpose of the story. The comedy is. This is a easy, feel good mystery meant to entertain and most of all, make you laugh. If you found it funny, then this will be a great book, if the humor didn’t suit your taste, then you will most likely despise this book. I would also say that there are some questionable elements. For example, I have no idea why the “romance” is there. It isn’t developed and just feel like it was forced into the story. There is also a rape of the villain that is played up for laugh in the book, that was a bit in bad taste for me but it isn’t the first time I have encounter rape of men as a joke, and most likely, not the last.
As you might have picked up, I found it hilarious so I adored this book despite the absurdity of many things in it, allowing me to give it a solid 7 out of 10. Only removing three points for the lack of character development, the out of place elements such as the romance and untasteful end of the villain, and the badly written mystery.
I will continue reading this series, and will most likely lower the points if it doesn’t fix those points, but I am always lenient on the first book. That said, I would recommend you check out the Graphic Audio version, since I think it brings out the humor more but warns you as with many comedy driven stories, you will like the story if you like this kind of humor, if you don’t then this will be a harrowing read for you.
With Kind Regards
Senefer.
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