From Publishers Weekly
First-time novelist Reuland walks a fine line in this bold, blackly comedic thriller, painting a gritty, poetic picture of ghetto life yet indulging his self-involved hero and stumbling over details at crucial junctures. Andrew "Gio" Giobberti, a young Brooklyn assistant district attorney, is haunted by his role in his five-year-old daughter's death a year before; he failed to fasten her seat belt, and she was killed in a minor car accident. Abandoned by his wife, Gio wanders through drunken one-night stands and days filled with the routine prosecution of killers, rapists and narcotics dealers. But when the case of Kayla Harris--a 14-year-old shot point-blank in her bed--comes along, Gio can't help drawing personal parallels. While he prefers to see drug dealer Lamar "LL" Lamb as the murderer, the evidence pushes him to investigate Kayla's junkie mother, Nicole Carbon, as the accidental killer of her own daughter. Reuland takes chances in depicting the chauvinistic habits of his protagonist, who abandons one of his many office conquests in a bar after a tryst in the bathroom, and is permanently sunk in a self-pitying haze. Still, his irreverent take on antihero Gio is a refreshing dash of candor in the genre, granting credibility to a story whose racing pace has an addictive effect. Reuland--himself a Brooklyn ADA--describes the Brooklyn Cypress Hills projects in convincing detail, and he captures the dialogue of its crack-addicted dwellers with a sharp and sympathetic ear. Agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Brooklyn and all the sights, sounds, smells, and anomie that the storied borough encompasses set the stage for this debut effort. The novel's opening finds Andrew Giobberti returning to work after a leave of absence to mourn the death of his five-year-old daughter, Opal. Yet it is not until "Gio" is assigned to prosecute the case of a teenaged girl killed in a Brooklyn housing project that he is finally forced to confront the tragedy that shattered his own life. Along the way, we meet a routine cast of characters: burnt-out cops, slimy criminals, and a truckload of possible love interests. Still, Reuland (himself a D.A.) has avoided writing a mere legal thriller and has instead fashioned a touching and finely written tale of one man's redemption. And while he does possess a sharp eye for the details and nuances of the legal system, he is more concerned with dramatizing the ambiguity between right and wrong and the eternal search for forgiveness in spite of human error. Recommended for all public libraries.
-DHeath Madom, "Library Journal" Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
