Customer Reviews

The Pixel Eye (Phil D'Amato)

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4 star:		(2)
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Paul Levinson's very human forensic detective, Phil D'Amato, is on his way to becoming one of the more memorable characters in detective fiction. This one puts Phil squarely in the path of a nightmare scenario which, one can only hope, is still a long way off. Watching him maneuver in, under, and around is pure joy.

The NYC Parks Commissioner reported that squirrels seem to have vanished from popular locales like Central Park, Prospect Park, and Van Cortlandt Park. Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Jack Dugan, not willing to ignore anything since 9/11, assigns NYPD forensic detective Phil D'Amato to investigate. Phil interviews park workers who insist there is a dramatic drop in population without a rise in corpses. The cop also visits a few parks, but sees nothing out of the ordinary. He wonders if perhaps it is like the 1980s restaurant case involving cats as chicken.

However, Phil soon learns that serendipitous research into using squirrels and hamsters as recording devices is underway at labs across the country. He becomes concerned that if rodents can be used as recorders, can they also be used as terrorist bombs? Perhaps it is part of the post WTC syndrome, but a panicky Phil begins a search of the eastern seaboard in an attempt to insure squirrel-carrying bombardiers don't lead to WTC II.

THE PIXEL EYE is a frightening scenario as Paul Levinson makes a strong case that nothing is safe in a world in which personal values push a cause as more important than people are. The story line may sound satirical and inane, but is far from it as the audience will quickly become as convinced as the hero that this squirrely technology can happen. Though the characters except for Phil are never fully developed, readers will be extra careful before feeding the birds and other creatures as that animal might prove to be the one that bites the hand that feeds it.

Harriet Klausner

Lean, mean, and funny. This mystery/sci-fi concoction got it just right -- had me page-turning, chilled, laughing, contemplative about our future, all at the same time. And the New York City ambience is top-drawer. I could feel the energy of the city -- the music, the traffic, the crush -- on lots of pages (I've been to NYC many times, and love it). Eagerly looking forward to Levinson's next.

I invite you to be amused and intrigued at the same time by reading Paul Levinson's new book "The Pixel Eye" featuring New York Forensic Detective Phil D'Amato. It's a different world today than it was on September 10, 2001. Paranoia runs deep in many of us and this book is a great book for the paranoid.

We have all seen squirrels running around the park collecting their nuts. What would happen if those squirrels were fitted with a brain chip and could monitor our every move or get into the nooks and crannies of a major office complex or the heart of city government and set off bombs? This brings a whole new dimension to the old adage "I wish I could be a fly on the wall." Levinson explores that possibility in a book that is a real page-turner. It is well-crafted. You really don't know who the "bad guy" is until well toward the end. There are suspects on every page.

When you read the first chapter, you can't help but to chuckle at the concept of missing squirrels and the importance that the New York police seem to have placed on this matter. But as the tale unfolds, it becomes clear that something is terribly awry and it is up to Phil D'Amato to put the pieces together and resolve the issue.

We do learn who the culprit is by the end of the book, however it closes in such a way that a sequel seems almost guaranteed. I enjoyed the book. It entertained me. There was an element of intrigue and it also made me laugh. It made me speculate on all of the possibilities of bugged squirrels and rodents running around my back yard.

Each of Paul Levinson's books gets better and better. He is comfortable in the skin of his charcters and the plot line in "Pixel Eye" is one of the most fascinating to date. I will never look at squirrels in the park quite the same way, without wondering what may be looking back at me! Highly recommended.

It's obvious from reading this book (and a lot of Paul's books) that he is a New Yorker. He describes the cityscape, sure, but he also details how Phil D'amato, his main character, feels about New York: the pride he takes in the skyscrapers, the way he knows the traffic and the subways, and what will get him faster where, and the particular city politics that is New York.

And from someone who has seen their city attacked, a novel about eyes and ears being everywhere, including the rodents that inhabit the city, isn't paranoia, its just precautionary forward thinking. The explosions in the novel, though on a smaller scale that what we have witnessed, are strikingly real.

The book dives right in with a squirrels as spys theory, going through a high level scientific explanation of whether the hearing and sight of rodents could be mapped, recorded and replayed. The pace meanders somewhat in the beginning, but it seems to fit D'Amato's character, as he meanders to put the pieces of the case he is solving together.

The ending, however, is wide open, with some conclusions reached, but no criminal apprehended. Maybe that is as it should be, depicting the war on terrorism as a battle that is hard to win, or even to determine if you are winning.

Another good D'Amato read.