Tropic of Night [Hardcover]

Michael Gruber (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 4, 2003

Not since The Secret History has a novel so flawlessly married the ferocious intensity of an unforgettable thriller with the depth, daring, and nuance of our most celebrated literary fiction. Tropic of Night is a virtuoso performance -- an unforgettably accomplished novel, a masterpiece of electricity and ambition.

Jane Doe was a promising anthropologist, an expert on shamanism. Now she's nothing, a shadow: after faking her own suicide, she's living under an assumed identity in Miami with a little girl to protect. Everyone thinks she's dead. Or so she hopes.

Then the killings start, a series of ritualistic murders that terrifies all of Miami. The investigator is Jimmy Paz, a Cuban-American police detective. There are witnesses, but they can recall almost nothing of the events, as though their memories have been erased -- as if a spell has been cast on each of them. Equally bizarre is the string of clues Paz uncovers: a divination charm, exotic drugs found in the bodies of the victims, a century-old report telling of a secret place in the heart of Africa.

These clues point Paz inexorably toward the fugitive, Jane Doe, and force Jane to realize that the darkness she has fled is seeking her out, hunting her down. By the time her path intersects with Jimmy Paz's, the two will be thrust into a cataclysmic battle between good and an evil unimaginable to the Western mind.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This debut thriller should come with a warning--do not pick up if you have anything else planned for as long as it takes to read it! Tropic of Night is a dramatic, stylish, smart, and very strongly plotted novel, mixing anthropology, ethnography, sorcery, mayhem, and murder in an intriguing and wholly captivating story that ranges from Mali to Siberia, Nigeria to Miami, and never lets up. Jane Doe is a smart but listless graduate student when she encounters Marcel Vierchau, a French scholar whose lover she quickly becomes, following him to the strange world of the Chenka, a mysterious sect of Siberian shamans in whose society she quickly loses her scholarly objectivity--and nearly her life. Returning without Vierchau to the comfortable world of her wealthy family, she meets and marries DeWitt Moore, a black poet who accompanies her to Africa on a field trip that turns him into a powerful shaman, awakens her own abilities to commune with the spirits of the Yoruba sorcerers, and again comes close to destroying her. Wary of Moore's new strength, she stages her own death and becomes a faceless member of Miami's underclass, but just when she believes she's safe from his reach, a series of bloody ritual murders of pregnant Miami women convince her that she is once again his target--and that anyone who comes between them, including her adopted daughter, will also meet a terrifying end. Michael Gruber delivers a fabulous, wholly original read that will linger in the reader's mind long after the last page is turned! --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

Gruber's intricate thriller ignites in the very first chapter as anthropologist heroine Jane Doe employs the theories of Claude Levi-Strauss, quotes W. H. Auden, kills a drunken woman using advanced aikido techniques and rescues an abused child whom she raises as her own. The story moves seamlessly between Miami, Long Island and West Africa. Jane Doe's husband, DeWitt Moore, an African-American poet and playwright, accompanies Jane to Nigeria, where she visits the Olo, a tribe of spiritual practitioners. There he falls under the influence of a malevolent witch and becomes a sorcerer. Fearing that her husband will try to kill her, Jane fakes suicide and flees to Miami. Moore, intent on wreaking vengeance on white America, follows and begins murdering pregnant women and stealing their unborn babies for use in a rite that will give him unstoppable powers. Investigating the murders is Cuban exile Iago "Jimmy" Paz and his Bible-spouting partner, Cletis Barlow. As Moore terrorizes Miami, Jane bows to the inevitable, comes out of hiding and gathers a tiny band of courageous accomplices to battle her ex-husband and his shuffling band of the undead. First-time novelist Gruber keeps his far-flung locations, complicated characters and anthropological information perfectly balanced in this finely crafted, intelligent and original work. While readying herself for battle, Jane's commentary on cleaning her rare Mauser pistol could read equally well as a description of Gruber's meticulous plotting: "Each part pops free with a precisely directed pressure and snaps in with a satisfying click, just where it belongs." How readers categorize this book will depend on their acceptance or rejection of Gruber's underlying thesis: "The point is, there's no supernatural. It's all part of the universe, although the universe is queerer than we suppose."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1 edition (March 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060509546
• ISBN-13: 978-0060509545
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (81 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,068,258 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born and raised in New York City, and educated in its public schools. I went to Columbia, earning a BA in English literature.. After college I did editorial work at various small magazines in New York, and then went back to school at City College and got the equivalent of a second BA, in biology. After that I went to the University of Miami and got a masters in marine biology. In 1968-69 I was in the U. S. Army as a medic.

In 1973, I received my Ph.D. in marine sciences, for a study of octopus behavior. Then I was a chef at several Miami restaurants. Then I was a hippie traveling around in a bus and working as a roadie for various rock groups. Then I worked for the county manager of Metropolitan Dade County, as an analyst. Then I was director of planning for the county department of human resources.

I went to Washington DC in 1977, and worked in the Carter White House, Office of Science and Technology Policy. Then I worked in the Environmental Protection Agency as a policy analyst and also as the speechwriter for the Administrator. In 1986, I was promoted to the Senior Executive Service of the U.S., the highest level of the federal civil service. That same year, Robert K. Tanenbaum contacted me and asked me to write a courtroom thriller to be published under his name. I did that, and since then I have also written the first fifteen novels in the popular Butch Karp and Marlene series.

In 1988 I left Washington, D.C. and settled in Seattle, where I worked as a speechwriter and environmental expert for the state land commissioner. I have been a full-time freelance writer since 1990, mostly on the Karp novels, but also doing non-fiction magazine pieces on biology. My first novel under my own name, TROPIC OF NIGHT, was published in 2003 (William Morrow) and a second novel, VALLEY OF BONES, as well as a children's book THE WITCH'S BOY (Harper Collins) came out in 2005. A third thriller for Morrow, NIGHT OF THE JAGUAR is due out in early 2006. I am married, with three grown children and an extremely large dog.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Smart and Very Scary, September 22, 2003

By 

Paul McGrath (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Tropic of Night (Hardcover)

Although this novel is a mixture of genres I usually avoid--the mystery/serial killer/horror/detective story--I somehow became intrigued by the reviews of this one and picked it up. To my delight I found it quite enjoyable, a perfect example of a light entertainment that is intelligent, witty, well-crafted and engrossing.

The story unfolds in alternating chapters: the first a first person narrative written by the protagonist, Jane Doe, (her real name); the second are the diaries written by her during her anthropological expeditions to Siberia and Africa; and the third a third person narrative having to do with the Miami detective whose path will eventually cross that of Jane's.

The plot has to do with Jane's studies into the spiritual or supernatural elements of two smallish societies in Siberia and Africa, and the unusual discoveries she makes about them. Her husband gets overly involved in the second African expedition, causing Jane a great deal of anguish and fear; he then sets into motion events which Jane comes to realize will unleash a demonic power on the earth the likes of which it has never seen. This causes her to flee in terror and go into hiding, which is where she is when the novel begins.

Sounds a bit preposterous, I know, and if you're raising your eyebrow a bit, I don't blame you. But the author handles it very well, making these powers seem to us as if they were misunderstood scientific phenomenon rather than the usual King-like made-up contrivance, and he is so knowledgeable about anthropology, geography, African folklore, mysticism, and voodooism that one finds oneself quite willing to suspend disbelief.

There are just a ton of surprising, bizarre, truly hair-raising moments. There is the ghostly, carnal visit in Siberia; the ritualistic Miami murders; the scary, shocking Santeria ritual; and the entire, nightmare African journey. Suffice to say, the book is very engrossing. And loaded with detail, too. As mentioned, the author is very knowledgeable, and there was a lot of stuff having to do with both contemporary and historical Africa which I found fascinating.

The detective story is a little more conventional but done very well, particularly the sardonic, witty dialogue between the two lead guys which is dead-on and often hilarious.

Look, I don't blame you if you're a little skeptical. I was too. But good writing is good writing, no matter what the genre, and this novel is loaded with it. Fun, entertaining, and rich in detail, the novel is a real blast. I look forward to more by this guy.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thrilling, riveting, thought provoking fun, February 21, 2005

By 

Booked4Life "booked4life" (middle america) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Tropic of Night (Mass Market Paperback)

Tropic of Night is a genre-bending thriller-mystery-magical realist tour de force. Scanning through the customer reviews, I found that some people hated the book for its density and others didn't like the character development of one of the African-American males in the book. I'll cop to being a white female, and admit I didn't see any problem with the treatment of Black Africans or African-Americans. I think people who did have misread or misunderstood the magical-realist nature of the book.

Michael Gruber seems far too accomplished a novelist to be writing his first book here, and he is. In fact, Michael Gruber is the ghost-writer for the Robert K. Tannenbaum legal thrillers. And they're fun to read, too.

When I finished this one, I immediately bought his next book (lucky me--I didn't find out about the Gruber books till he already had two out and one on the way). Now that I've read it (Valley of Bones), I'm eagerly awaiting the young adult novel Witch's Boy.

Buy it--read it--enjoy!

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterfully Told Story, April 1, 2003

By 

"rebeccahughes2" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tropic of Night (Hardcover)

I loved reading Tropic of Night. Maybe "reading" isn't the right word. I inhaled it in two days flat. I already had an interest in Yoruba religion, but even if I hadn't, I would have savored this fabulous concoction of so much magic and so many different compelling worlds. I don't enjoy gratuitous violence, and I didn't find any in this book. I've seldom read a male writer who gets so convincingly inside a woman protagonist's head. Michael Gruber tells the story in a masterful way. Read it!