(pb; 1996: movie tie-in novel, based on Shane Black’s screenplay)
From the back cover
“Eight years ago, Samantha Caine, woke up on a beach—two months pregnant—with amnesia. Now it’s eight years later, and the tranquil life she’s built with her new husband Hal and daughter Caitlin is about to shatter.
“Samantha doesn’t remember that she was once the United States government’s most lethal assassin. But Pentecost—a vicious and cunning terrorist leader who was her last assignment—recalls her vividly. After believing she was dead, he has just discovered she’s alive—and he’s sending his people after her.
“When Caitlin was kidnapped by
Pentecost’s terrorist group, Samantha has to remember her deadly skills before
her family becomes just a memory.”
Review
Boyll’s adaptation of filmmaker Shane Black’s whip-smart script crackles with the underlying humor of its source-material script/film, maintaining the fun sense of Black’s over-the-top, memorable action set pieces, character development (and resulting concern this viewer-later-reader felt for key characters) and swift pacing. Not only that, Boyll ups the enjoyment level of Goodnight by including a not-in-the-film chapter about Samantha/Charly’s childhood, how she came by her emotional damage and came to be a government assassin. Goodnight is a great, blast-of-a-read movie tie-in novel, one that answers the question some may ask: why read the book when you can just watch the movie? Worth owning, this, especially for that glimpse into Charly’s memory/psyche and a playful reference to another film actor Samuel L. Jackson (who plays Mitch Henessy in Goodnight) co-starred in.
