Shooting Dr. Jack [Hardcover]

Norman Green (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 21, 2001

This is the story of three men. Fat Tommy Roselli, also known as Tommy Bagadonuts, whose flamboyant style and open heart belie his sharp eye for a quick deal; Stoney, Fat Tommy's partner in a shady junkyard business on Troutman Street, whose cynicism and brutality almost save him from his alcoholism; and Tuco, their young, street-smart apprentice, whose bravado and cunning hide his innocence, his insecurity, and his desperate desire to belong. All three are on an inevitable collision course with violence, on "a one-way street that runs from nowhere to nowhere". All three are in search of redemption, and for each of them, there seems to be only one way out.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It takes considerable skill to craft a gripping novel approaching 300 pages in which nothing much happens during the first 150. Fortunately for the readers of Norman Green's first book, Shooting Dr. Jack, Green's got the knack, in spades. His characters aren't drawn, they're acid-etched. His landscape, seamlessly rendered, is a gray, emotionless void:

Fall through the cracks of a better and kinder world, and you find yourself on Troutman Street. Dreams of a new world die in her sweatshops, cars and trucks die in her chop shops and junkyards, children die in her vacant lots, shooting one another for the right to sell crack on the two or three big intersections, junkies die wherever they happen to be when they shoot up--hallways, alleys, parking lots.

Tommy Rosselli, a.k.a. Fat Tommy, a.k.a. Tommy Bagadonuts, is a relatively brilliant entrepreneur who, while largely operating beyond the law, nonetheless owns a good and honest heart. Stoney, Tommy's brutal partner in a shady Brooklyn junkyard, is a smoldering alcoholic struggling to bring his body, soul, wife, and kids into some approximation of normalcy. And 18-year-old Eddie Tuco, an illiterate "Nuyorican" who works for Tommy and Stoney, faces temptation, redemption, and loss as a result.

Tommy and Stoney need to find out who left two dead teenagers in the junkyard, who killed their accountant, who ambushed Tommy in his apartment, who's been shadowing their employees, and why. Tuco does too, but he's got some demons to wrestle and scores to settle on his own. Rounding out this vision of desperation are the eponymous Dr. Jack--the name of both a drug and its dealer, which affect their users as Dr. Kevorkian affects his patients--and the junkyard's blighted Troutman Street landscape itself.

Not a mystery in the truest sense and not a thriller by most standards, Shooting Dr. Jack is both of those things and more. It's intelligent, it grabs like a vice in due course, and its dialogue and narrative resonate with urban grit and truth. --Michael Hudson

From Publishers Weekly

If nothing concentrates the mind like an imminent hanging, then second place may well be the looming presence of a couple of South American hit men, who in this self-assured debut have their eyes on the Troutman Street junkyard of Fat Tommy Rosselli, a.k.a. Tommy Bagadonuts. Fat Tommy rules his junkyard like a small-scale godfather, finessing the cops and looking out for his partner Stoney and young associate Tuco. He helps Tuco get a new place to live when Tuco's girlfriend throws him out, and he worries about Stoney's drinking (with good reason Stoney has been blacking out, and it's ruining his marriage). But when Fat Tommy is shot and critically injured by someone he knows, and South American hit men show up, the refrain of his cohorts becomes, "What would Tommy do?" From here on in, this novel about small-time crooks on the shady edge of the law turns into a weirdly compelling tale of character growth and redemption, of a sort. Green does an excellent job of setting up Troutman Street, which runs between Brooklyn and Queens, as not just a road but a self-contained world of its own. The sharply drawn characters and the clever nicknames will invite comparisons to Elmore Leonard, but there's little of Leonard's flash and cockiness here, only a gritty realism, an attention to detail, and a resolute avoidance of clich‚s that speaks of a writer with his own style and his own story to tell about how men smart enough to see the trap they're in can become smart enough to escape it. (Sept.)Forecast: Green's strong voice bodes well for this debut and future books; blurbs from Perri O'Shaughnessy and Jeffrey Deaver, a 25-city radio campaign and a five-city author tour should get the word out.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1st edition (August 21, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060188227
• ISBN-13: 978-0060188221
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,385,916 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A winner!, September 14, 2001

By 

Jane C. (Fort Myers, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shooting Dr. Jack (Hardcover)

Norm Green's characters are so real and alive, I could swear that I've seen them somewhere in the NY metro area. Shooting Dr. Jack is a mystery...but much more than your typical mystery. It brings you in and puts you right on the streets of Brooklyn. Even though I lost sleep from reading late into the night, I really didn't want the book to end.

My advise to others: try it, you'll like it.

I can't wait for his next novel. Hurry up Norman Green, give us more.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good first novel, February 10, 2005

By 

MN Snowman (Shoreview, MN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shooting Dr. Jack: A Novel (Paperback)

I ended up reading Green's three books in the reverse chronological order in which they were written ... this is his first book and the last one that I read.

I'm a big fan of Green's ... and like this book almost as well as his last.

Like the other two, this has a good plot and interesting characters. While you don't feel much sympathy for the characters at the beginning, they grow on you and by the end you're wholly engaged.

Not a mystery ... but a good suspense novel and a great character study. I'm only sorry that his fourth book hasn't been released!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding First Book, March 9, 2002

By 

RFK (Hackensack, New Jersey USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shooting Dr. Jack (Hardcover)

Shooting Dr. Jack is an excellent first novel for Norman Green. The book's characters come to life with Green's detailed descriptions. His ability to describe characters, places and events is a rarity in todays books, and you feel as if his characters are actual people walking the streets of Brooklyn. Once I started this novel and got to know these characters I could not put it down. I can't wait for Norman Green's second book, I am sure it will be full of more detailed and memorable characters, and surprises.