Hollowpoint

Rating:
Summary: Caveat Emptor
Review: This is a well-written novel about crime, but not a novel that meets the expectations of those seeking 'crime fiction.' This is art fiction, short on incident, long on characterization. While it held my attention it was not in any way suspenseful. Nor was it comic. Something bad has happened to a good man. We eventually learn the mundane but still shattering details. In the meantime he is working on another case which ultimately elucidates his own situation. That's about it, along with some reflections on Brooklyn which are nicely done. This is not, however, a heavily textured reflection on place of the sort associated with a master like James Lee Burke. While the Brooklyn portrayed is darker than Jonathan Lethem's it is not so fully realized as to be a central presence in its own right. My guess is that readers of art fiction are generally not readers of crime fiction and the former may have taken this novel to be the sort of thing read by the latter. It isn't, but it's well done.

Rating:
Summary: Hollow
Review: To simply call Rob Reuland's HOLLOWPOINT a crime novel would be unfair. Yes, there is a crime, but this outstanding first novel is more of a character driven morality play.
Andrew Giobberti is a young, Brooklyn ADA, who works one of the toughest neighborhoods in the borough, East New York. Mired in regret and self-pity after his young daughter's death and abandoned by his wife, Gio's life is a wasteland of drinking and meaningless sex, until he is assigned a case involving the death of a fourteen year old girl.
Both sarcastic wit and blunt reality drive HOLLOWPOINT in an examination of the fine lines which blur and separate the innocent from the guilty, and where even the morality of those who uphold the law is in question.
HOLLOWPOINT is one of the finest novels I've read this year, and the very talented Rob Reuland is definitely worth watching.

Rating:
Summary: Tough, gritty and oh, so good
Review: To simply call Rob Reuland's HOLLOWPOINT a crime novel would be unfair. Yes, there is a crime, but this outstanding first novel is more of a character driven morality play.
Andrew Giobberti is a young, Brooklyn ADA, who works one of the toughest neighborhoods in the borough, East New York. Mired in regret and self-pity after his young daughter's death and abandoned by his wife, Gio's life is a wasteland of drinking and meaningless sex, until he is assigned a case involving the death of a fourteen year old girl.
Both sarcastic wit and blunt reality drive HOLLOWPOINT in an examination of the fine lines which blur and separate the innocent from the guilty, and where even the morality of those who uphold the law is in question.
HOLLOWPOINT is one of the finest novels I've read this year, and the very talented Rob Reuland is definitely worth watching.