Customer Reviews

Tropic of Night

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

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.

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!

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!

Tropic of Night is a totally engrossing, can't-put-it down thriller that draws you in and won't let you go. The novel concerns a series of ritual, shocking murders in Miami and several people involved with trying to stop them. The story begins, not with a murder, or with a police detective heading to the crime scene, but with a woman watching a young child sleep. The woman, Jane Doe, is living under an alias with Luz, a young child who is not her daughter. She has thrown away her former, much more comfortable way of life to escape from a horror we learn about as we read the novel. The novel also follows Detective Iago Paz, a man of Cuban heritage who ultimately discovers that Jane can help him solve these murders. This novel is completely engrossing; however, I must warn you that much of the plot concerns a kind of sorcery and witchcraft that some may find completely implausible. Towards the end of the novel, it started to really bother me, but Gruber ties it up neatly (not too neatly) and brings the novel back to more solid footing. All in all, an excellent read. Enjoy.

This was the most thrilling book I read all last year -- it's not only a crackling adventure and a fascinating police procedural, but it opened me to a new world view, the world view of West African folk belief. Gruber is a first-rate writer, one whose characters are always consistent, whose prose is lush and visceral, and who understands both pace and structure. This one kept me up for two nights, and when I'd finished I wished it had been for a week. Just a brilliant book from start to finish. There are rumors that Gruber was the primary ghostwriter for Robert Tanenbaum, and that wouldn't surprise me given the high quality of some of the earlier Tanenbaum books and the fact that they've pretty much gone off the diving board since TROPIC OF NIGHT made Gruber a well-known writer in his own right.

Phew! I just finished Tropic of Night and found it absolutely unique and-- pardon the pun-- spellbinding. I should have started this book on a Friday, because while I was reading I didn't want to do anything else-- like go to work, eat meals, or sleep.

I can't imagine why anyone would call this book overhyped. It's imaginative, well-written, and terrifying. I can't wait to read the next book Mr. Gruber writes, and I hope that he is planning a series of books about Jane Doe!

Tropic of Night is one of the great masterworks of the Thriller genre. Like the best works Raymond Chandler, John LeCarre and Patrick O'Brian, this book completely transcends its genre. It is a powerful and original novel. Beautifully paced with wonderful characters, serious primal themes that matter and a voice that is strikingly original. I have recommended it to many of my friends. I tell them to go out and buy it. Because this guy Gruber deserves to sell a lot of books and be successful. I hope he continues to write. God, I wish I'd written it.

Michael Gruber's "Tropic Of Night" is an imaginative, supernatural thriller which ultimately combines the paralleling experiences of its two main characters.

Jane Doe an aspiring anthropologist hailing from an affluent family on the North Shore of Long Island is presently living a meagre existence hiding under an assumed name in Miami. She was led to this by her professional associations which saw her travel into the steppes of Siberia. With an eminent colleague she spent years studying among the mysterious Chenka tribe purveyors of a powerful form of sorcery.

Years later, now an expert on sorcery and shamanism and married to Dewitt Moore an African American poet, Doe and her husband travel to Mali to study the customs of witchcraft under the Olo tribe. While there Moore falls under the influence of an evil and powerful shaman and becomes one himself. Doe fearing for her life flees and fakes her own death keeping underground.

Meanwhile back in Miami Cuban American detective Jimmy Paz gets called in to investigate a ritualistic murder where a pregnant woman had been murdered along with her fetus which had been surgically removed from her uterus. Appparently certain body parts had been consumed in which turned out to be a ritual design to bestow upon the murderer untold evil powers of sorcery. The mothered Paz whose mom secretly was a priestess in the practice of Santeria gets drawn into a fantastic and implausibe plot of supernatural powers. He eventually partners with Jane Doe in an attempt to thwart the serial murderer who by that time had committed two additional murders with the same m.o.

Gruber in his intial novel pushes the envelope of believability in his novel. Some sections chronicling Jane Doe African experiences tend to bog down but the book is nonetheless a compelling read.

then we would have been rewarded with an extraordinary achievement.

(In what follows, I assume everybody planning to buy this novel has read the Amazon's editorial reviews, which summarize the book's contents well enough so I don't have to retell them).

Unfortunately the book has two major flaws:

(1) It starts at an irresistible and utterly enthralling pace (the Siberian interlude, and, more in general, anything related to Vierchau is extremely well done), which is maintained in Africa, until Jane departs from the Olo's village. Then the tempo slackens, and frankly, becomes in places almost a boring formulaic police procedural. Perhaps in a story of this type this is unavoidable (I mean, after conjecture and speculation, you have to come back to everyday "reality" as we know it, and it disappoints).

(2) It goes too far in the powers it attributes to DeWitt, and perhaps also Jane. Their "physical" explanation isn't convincing enough, and neither is the time it took both to master them (it isn't clearly stated in Jane's diary, but it can't have been more than a month and a half, maximum). Even if Jane writes that she's performing "by rote", it isn't believable (and even less so in DeWitt's case) that what requires a life's training can be acquired, almost casually, in less that two months.

(3) There are also some minor inconsistencies, as for example Jane's assertion that, had DeWitt completed his okunikua ritual, he "might have been able to whip Ifa". C'mon, lady: if what you wrote in your diary is true, DeWitt whipping Ifa would be an impossibility, like, say, Jimmy Paz whipping the Christian God!

But perhaps all books of this type face a fork: there arrives a point after which they have to choose either to go magical or supernatural all the way (in which case we have, God help us, the likes of Aleister Crowley or the countless worthless sorcery or "occult" books that flood the market), or they must attempt at the end to provide a semirational explanation, and the transition, as I wrote above, can't be managed without a letdown.
This could be avoided by following a more "moderate" storyline, as for example in Nick Stone's "Mr. Clarinet", but then I would regret that there's not enough vodoo, sorcery, or whatever you call it. Perhaps it's a no-win situation, and Gruber is to be commended for having given it a very respectable try.

My advice: buy it and read it to the -open- end (does this mean there'll be a sequel?). It's an important effort in its genre.

I read this book when it first came out, so it's been a few weeks and I'm still thinking about ideas and notions from the novel. And the characters feel real and I wonder how they're doing.

The rave reviews helped me open the book in the first place .. since I tend to avoid books with knives on the cover (even very exotic and evocative knives) -- but I was lucky enough NOT to read any of the "reviews" that are really a synopsis of the plotline (why do people do that?) I wasn't going to post a review here since others had done such a fine job, but I've been recommending this book to my friends, and someone mentioned the negative reviews over here. So I just dropped in to say _don't believe them_ this is an amazing book .. literally 'thought-provoking' ..