Craig Nova

My fourth Nova. I wasn’t impressed by Trombone, but this, Incandescence, and The Book of Dreams are intricate, patient, surprising, poetic novels that massage out human truths the way fiction doesn’t seem interested in trying to these days. Nova is especially good at conveying atmosphere – I mean physical atmosphere, how the air feels, rain and sweat and scent – like most of my favourite writers, he’s very physical, tangible. It’s just a book about people, and not even especially show more complicated people, but it’s a pure delight to read show less

A look at the cover might suggest that this novel is "merely" a cop story, but while there are cops in it, it is much, much more than that. CRUISERS is the story of two men juxtaposed by time and place into a sort of destiny, despite the seeming randomness of their coming together. Russell Boyd is a New England cop; Frank Kohler is the survivor of a childhood horror who years later is trying to make sense of what happened and how it has transformed him. The two men have nothing to do with show more one another, yet they encounter each other more than once, as do the women in their lives. With a powerful and dramatic sense of inevitability, the threads of their individual lives are drawn together as though by fate, until new horrors erupt. The story of the two men is compelling in its narrative alone, but author Craig Nova is a poetic writer, and he is one of the best writers I've ever read for giving a sense of what internal monologue and thought might sound like if we could hear characters thinking. CRUISERS is thought-provoking and stylish without being baroque. It is a fine novel, a subtle and nuanced thriller that quietly transcends the stigma of that genre by being an absorbing artistic and literary work. show less

I found this on a used books bin and took a chance despite never having heard of the book or the author. I'm glad I did. Nova somehow manages to wring humor out of a story full of poverty, desperation, and despair. In the introduction William Boyd compares the writing to Jack Kerouac's, but I'd say it's closer to Henry Miller minus the self-indulgent meandering. Well worth reading.

I liked this book -- it appeals to the part of me that loves intelligence in the written word. As a work of historical fiction, it is very well written.

The Informer is set in Berlin at the end of Germany's Weimar Republic (1918-1933) and Germany's politics are fractured among the lines of three main political groups: the Communists, the various right-wing groups (including but not limited to the Nazis), and the prevailing Socialist government. On the streets these divisions often play out as show more brawls and skirmishes between rival factions, each with its gang of thugs, and this fracture continues on up into city and governmental bureaucracies where thuggery is more or less official yet clandestine. Everything is played according to where one's loyalties lie.

Without going into the plot, at the center of this well-written novel is Gaelle, the disfigured 22 year old prostitute and "The Informer" of the story. Gaelle is protected as well as pimped out by Felix, a 16 year old boy who lives on the streets with his ears to the ground. She often supplements their earnings by selling secrets she learns from clients, which works well for the two of them until she happens upon some intelligence regarding a man who works at the Soviet Embassy and spies on the Red Front for the Brownshirts. While all of this is happening, Armina Treffen, a police officer in Inspectorate A (a division of the kriminalpolizei that investigates homicide), is seeking a serial killer who is stalking young women in the Tiergarten park area. Armina is a professional and cares about her work, but she has her own personal issues which are compounded by the politics of her boss Ritter, which hamper her work on the case.

The Informer is not your average "Berlin noir" type of novel like Jonathan Rabb's series (beginning with Rosa), nor is it like Kerr's Berlin novels, both of which are both more plot driven. It is more character driven, with its atmosphere of place and time acting as the headliner. From the very beginning, the book draws you into the "malice" (the author's word) pervading the streets and the very air, not to mention the uncertainty of what is to come. In this sense, the suspense aspect of the novel permeates throughout -- not so much as an aspect of the novel's plotline, but in terms of the future of the German people. There are several scenes in which the author offers a brief foreshadowing of the future -- a line of people at the local vet having their dogs killed as a solution to their inability to feed their pets because of the high rate of inflation, and the description of Armina going daily by the children from the "special" school -- both send a shiver up the reader's spine because we know exactly what these scenes allude to in only a matter of a few years hence.

The dustjacket blurb calls the book a "literary thriller," but the scales tip heavily in favor of the literary side, and to label this book merely a "thriller" is really to cheapen it, so don't expect a thriller in the normal sense of the word. This is my first novel by this author, but definitely not the last. Highly recommended. show less