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. ..288 pages, PUBLISHED at twenty five dollars.

 Random House Inc 0375505016 / 9780375505010
Westminster, Maryland, U.S.A. 

Price: 11.96 USD