Many years ago, during freshman college college psychology class, I learned the sad tale of Kitty Genovese, a young woman who worked late and when she returned home, a deranged, violent man was watching her to harm and kill her.

While many observed and/or heard the screams of the incident, no one called the police, thinking that they did not need to do so because most likely others had called 911. This true story was used in class as a reference of how easily it is for others not to take responsibility and help someone in need.

The author weaves fictional people and their lives that fateful evening. The tales of the other lives that evening were disturbingly nasty and violent. I read this book in one sitting, and while I thought it was very well written, reading it at night was frightening.

This is a dazzling novel. Don't start it unless you can devote the whole evening to it. The force of the narrative drags you into half a dozen compelling human stories; interwoven and parallel lives which are all at a turning point during one early morning.

The crisp writing and tightly plotted chapters drive you through it at a relentless pace: you really won't want to stop reading until you find out what happens to each character as they confront a pivotal moment and emerge forever altered by the experience.

This book feels very much like one of those blockbuster montage movies, where intertwined threads weave back and forth en route towards an almightly climax. In this case the action is set in mid-America, in the early 1960s. The main theme involves a savage attack on a young woman but although that is sold as the central narrative there is plenty else going on in here too; being drafted for Vietnam, wife-swapping and all its consequences, what happens when an abused child grows up, racism and police corruption, being chronically ill, the loneliness which can lead to suicide, taking the step from boyhood to manhood, acknowledging an unspoken sexual desire and more -- oh, there's heaps more.

It's as if author RD Jahn has done his best to cram every ounce of the human condition into this one novel, and he's come scarily close to achieving that goal. For the characters also display compassion, fidelity and mercy; it's not all entirely grim.

You may find in the opening chapters that you are a little bewildered about who all the different people are, because each segment hops between scenes and people and there's some real stunt-writing with the timeline too. As the novel goes on you become familiar with each situation (although I never did identify the characters by their names), and it rewards careful reading. This book delivers its best if you have time and concentration to spend on it: turn off the background chatter if you really want to be swept away by the stark and occasionally exquisite outcomes.

If you like this kind of crime-thriller fiction, then I suggest you also try [b:A Last Act of Charity|22602019|A Last Act of Charity (Killing Sisters, #1)|Frank Westworth|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1404054107s/22602019.jpg|42088165][[ASIN:1909984426 A Last Act of Charity]]. I'm a bit biased (reader: I married the author!) but it should appeal to a similar audience.

Very hard to see how Acts Of Violence (which is an alternative title; it's been published as both this and Good Neighbours, so don't buy both!) could have been better, so it scores an astonishing--
10/10 ( )

eerily good book. ( )

Originally posted (with a giveaway until July 4) here.

In my AP Psych class, we learned about Kitty Genovese, murdered on the street in front of her New York apartment building. Though many of her neighbors heard her cries, no one helped her; no one even bothered to call the police. We learned that this is an example of 'diffusion of responsibility,' each witness assumes that someone else will have informed the authorities, so they don't call because that would just tie up the phone lines. Not stepping between a woman and a madman is one thing, but not making a call to save her life, the life of a woman you've probably seen any number of times?

When I heard about Jahn's novel based on this incident, I immediately added it to my to-read list, because that whole thing is so incredibly morbidly fascinating to me. So, when I was offered a review copy of Jahn's newest, The Dispatcher, I accepted, and, when offered this one as well, I took it.

Jahn presents the idea in the form of fiction. He changes Kitty Genovese into Kat Marino. The story covers only a few hours, making use of short vignettes. All of the people involved in Marino's murder are shown during the same timeframe: her murderer, the people in her building who heard or saw but did nothing, the people who finally found her, the ambulance drivers who arrived to take her, still alive despite many stabbings, to the hospital. I suspect this is probably the most effective way to tell this story, however I didn't really connect to the characters.

The only people in the story I felt any sort of real interest in were a possibly forming gay couple and an older black man with a strong sense of justice. Otherwise, pretty much everyone here is either awful or boring. There's an adulterous husband, a father who wants to murder a child rapist, and a dirty cop, trying to frame other people for his own actions.

Jahn's writing style, while very apt for a thriller of this sort, isn't one that resonates with me. He uses primarily short sentences and makes heavy use of repetition, not accidentally but intentionally. Others may like his writing, but I prefer longer, more ornate syntax.

What made this still a worthwhile read for me was the subject matter. My mind is still turning over how people could witness a woman being attacked in a courtyard and do nothing. Not only that, but they don't check on her later, once the man is gone. That could have made a difference between her survival and death. It's not like they needed to step in front of the serial killer. They might have been able to save her while never risking themselves, especially since there were so many of them watching. Mankind is awful.

If you like thrillers, ethical questions, or shows like CSI, you might like Ryan David Jahn's work. ( )

This won a Crime Writer's Association Award, so I was expecting big things. It's based on the Kitty Genovese murder that occurred in the early 1960's. For those who don't know, Kitty Genovese was a young woman who was raped and murdered in the courtyard of her apartment with her neighbors looking on while it happened. The murderer ran and left her still alive, but came back ten minutes later, systematically searched for her, and finished her off. It wasn't until that point that someone called the police. This incident led to a lot of research studying the "bystander effect" and the phenomenon of diffused responsibility.

Sadly, at this point in our history this is awful, but not nearly as shocking as it might have been. The 24-hour news cycle has brought all kinds of horror into our living rooms. Additionally, I've found that for me the definitive work on this is a short story written by Harlan Ellison. It's called "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs" and it's been seared into my brain in the most crystalline form since the first time I read it. It's collected in Deathbird Stories and highly recommended. Harlan Ellison can get under your skin better than just about any writer living or dead.

My primary issue with this book, however, was the interlocking stories. There were too many of them too loosely connected. The book keeps a careful distance from everything in it, including the characters, and while this works as a metaphor for what happened for me it just doesn't work from a storytelling point of view. ( )