Book of Night

Charlie is attacked by Adam, who is enraged at her betrayal. He tries to kill her, but Charlie instinctively—and successfully—sends her shadow at him. She locks herself in her car, bruised and bleeding, and drives away. Her shadow is depleted and needs to feed on more of her blood. Once her shadow is fed, Charlie realizes Adam must have followed her home, so she calls Posey and orders her to leave the house.

When they meet in town, Posey is shocked at Charlie’s appearance and asks if Vince hurt her. Charlie tells Posey about Adam, and Posey reveals that Vince overheard them talking and knew that Charlie was planning to meet him. Charlie thinks about her relationship with Vince and regrets their breakup.

The novel flashes back to Vince’s young adulthood. One night, at a snooty charity party, Remy and Adeline went downstairs to a pool room to swim. When a member of the household staff stopped them, Adeline bullied Remy into sending Red after the woman. Red possessed the maid to frighten her and snap at Adeline. Some of their friends joined them. Later that night, a drunk Adeline told Remy she wanted Red to kiss her. Remy and Adeline argued and went home, where Salt was waiting for them. He wanted to experiment with drugging Remy so he could speak directly to Red. Before Remy lost consciousness from the drugs, he heard Red speak through his voice.

The narrative returns to the present. Charlie and Posey go to stay with their mother and her boyfriend. As they settle in, Charlie finds the old record of her hospitalization after Rand’s death and learns that she was drugged by Salt. Charlie’s mother regrets not taking better care of Charlie when she was growing up.

Charlie begins putting together what she knows of Vince’s past; she thinks Salt put his daughter, Vince’s mother, into rehab so he could control his grandson. Then, Salt must have offered to bring Red to life as a reward for the shadow’s help in killing Salt’s enemies and earning Salt a seat on the Cabal—the offer would have meant Salt needed the Liber Noctem.

The next day, Charlie tends to her wounds so she can go to work. At the bar, she speaks with Odette about Salt. Odette says that they’re all products of their past. As she works, Charlie remembers how Vince kindly offered to clean out their rain gutters before he left. She realizes that must be where he hid the book. Charlie decides she can’t hand the book over to Salt, so she has to trick him. When she returns home, she sees someone inside.

Charlie goes to the roof and finds a locked box. Then, she cautiously goes inside, only to find that the man there is dead. At first, she worries it’s Vince, but it turns out to be Adam. The name Red is written on the walls in Adam’s blood.

Charlie calls the police, who arrest her and bring her to the police station for questioning. Eventually, she’s able to leave, only to run into Doreen, who blames Charlie for Adam’s death. The police forbid Charlie from going home after the murder, so she breaks into her friend Suzie’s apartment to regroup.

In the morning, she opens the locked box and discovers only a note addressed to her reading: “[A]bandon all hope” (241). Charlie texts a colleague of Vince’s and gets the name of a hotel where Vince recently worked, deducing he might be there. She goes to the hotel, manages to use her shadow to break into a room, and finds evidence of Vince’s stay. While there, she looks through the notebook she stole from Adam and discovers hidden pages written by Lionel Salt regarding his experiments with shadows. Charlie theorizes that Singh was killed for having evidence against Salt. She writes a note for Vince and leaves.

The narrative flashes back.

Vince sits at a bar, waiting to meet Knight Singh to sell him a stolen book. He reflects on his new life away from Remy, and his new experience in a human body. While he waits, he flirts with the girl next to him. Soon he notices that several gloamists and suspects he’s walked into a trap. The girl introduces herself as Charlie Hall and invites him outside. They have sex in an alley.

In the present, Charlie sneaks into Salt’s party, dressed as a catering server. Salt is celebrating his induction into the Cabal. Charlie goes into Salt’s private library; experiencing residual trauma from her previous visit with Rand, she cracks his safe using the key “Abandon all hope.” She switches a nondescript parcel for an object in the safe. Before she leaves, she discovers another secret passage out of the library. It leads to a surveillance room filled with restraints designed to trap shadows. In a cell she discovers Vince; however, she realizes it must actually be the Blight Red posing to look like him.

Charlie confronts Red, accusing him of using a ritual from the Liber Noctem to become human. She asks about Adam’s murder, which Red denies. Red describes himself as a reservoir for all of Remy’s anger and shame over the murders they committed for Salt and encourages her to run away and leave Vince behind. Charlie refuses to leave without Vince. Then, she realizes that Edmund Carver, or Remy, died years ago and that Vince and Red have always been the same person. Vince explains that when Remy died, killed by his grandfather, he gave all his life energy to Red. Red reveals that he was the boy who had helped Charlie escape when she was a child. Adeline comes into the room, and Charlie hides. While Vince confronts Adeline about their past, Charlie escapes.

Outside, Posey cuts Charlie’s shadow away. Afterward, Charlie enters the party and announces that she has Salt’s stolen book, as promised. She unveils the Liber Noctem—the object she’s just taken from Salt’s library—and reveals that it was never stolen to begin with. The Hierophant, who is among the party guests, attempts to wrestle it from her.

Charlie tells the Hierophant that Salt set her up and that he was never going to help the Hierophant become human. She also accuses Salt of murdering Knight Singh, to the astonishment of the guests. Salt tries to control Charlie with his shadow, but he can’t because she no longer has one. The Cabal moves to Salt’s library, where Vince is being held captive. Salt tries to deflect her claims by telling the gathered Cabal members that Vince was manipulating Charlie and that he killed Remy and the others. In desperation, Charlie offers to show everyone how she broke into the safe. When she does so, however, Salt activates a secret alarm. Inside the safe is what Charlie left behind: Knight Singh’s notebook, filled with Salt’s handwritten experiments. Once he realizes he’s been beaten, Salt points a gun at Charlie. Vince breaks free and holds a letter opener to Salt’s throat.

The Hierophant realizes that to control him, Salt only pretended there was a ritual to give a Blight human form. But then, Salt shoots the Hierophant and absorbs his shadow’s energy. Thus newly empowered, Salt’s shadow fights Vince, as Charlie fights Salt himself. Realizing they can’t win, Charlie cuts Salt’s shadow loose so that it turns on Salt. After killing Salt, his shadow and Vince run, crashing into the fireplace. The firelight destroys Salt’s shadow, but Charlie pulls Vince back just in time. Just then, they’re caught in a net by the Cabal.

The Cabal separates Charlie and Vince, saying that she can see him in three days. At home, Posey adjusts to having Charlie’s quickened shadow and Charlie adjusts to being without one. They read in the paper that Salt has been implicated in several murders. Charlie goes to work and speaks with Odette and Balthazar about Salt’s downfall.

After three days, she goes to see Vince. There, Charlie runs into Adeline, who claims she’ll be guarding Vince for the foreseeable future. Vince is being held captive upstairs, his appearance changed. Charlie realizes that Vince will be tethered to Adeline and that together they will become the new Hierophant. Charlie and Vince have goodbye sex.

Then, Charlie goes to see the Cabal members downstairs. She demands to be tethered to Vince instead of Adeline. They’re reluctant but ultimately agree. When Charlie and Vince bond, Vince turns back into a shadow. In Charlie’s car, she is startled to see that Vince no longer remembers her. Instead, he wants to reunite with Remy. Charlie vows to “steal back [his] heart” (304).