Rating: 
Summary: So,so...
Review: I'm not sure what people are reading who declare somewhat breathlessly that this is a "masterpiece". Be that as it may, this is an interesting thriller and it has its moments it must be admitted. Still, as a believeable character, in any sense, it must also be conceded that Jane Doe is way over the top and the plot, though involving, edges toward the baroque. My main quarrel is not so much with the cross-cultural pyrotechnics- you engage that sort of willing suspension of disbelief at entry. It is the everyday surround that strains credulity. As just one eg, near as I can tell, Doe's entire relationship with Luz transpires in something like a couple of weeks or so and yet the narrative regularly alludes to the development of that relationship as if it must have taken place over months and months. This is minor quarrel, but verisimilitude of the quotidian helps set the fireworks in credible relief. The prose is fairly humdrum. It's a good sand-up-the-behind-beach-read, I think, and as that it's worth a whirl. Just don't expect a whole lot more.
Rating: 
Summary: A Masterfully Told Story
Review: 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!
Rating:
Summary: Like no other novel I've read in recent times
Review: I don't understand the negative, rather vacuous reviews of this novel online (of which there are fortunately only a couple of). I can only assume these readers suffer from the New York, elitist "anti-hype" mentality that plagues the literary, music, and film inner circles. This book is both a terrifying thriller, a study on the nature of racism, and a mind bender on the power of delusion as it pertains to magic, projection, identity, and race. It is one of those books that you read and it sticks with you for weeks, months. I still have concepts from this book running through my head; race is an illusion, "magic" may be a term applied to a technology we don't understand, etc. The only problem I have with it is perhaps the slightly awkward "ebonics" that some of the characters speak. I think this can be forgiven however, as this changes so frequently in real life as to not detract from the essence of the novel. I think Mr. Gruber could have done better for himself had he bought the latest hiphop records and learned to love them, but then he'd run the risk of alienating all those who aren't hip to the lingo. In any case, this book is amazing. I recommend it to everyone.
Rating:
Summary: Thrilling, riveting, thought provoking fun
Review: 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!
Rating:
Summary: exciting but troubling
Review: TROPIC OF NIGHT is a genuinely exciting and scary thriller with some rather upsetting implications. The plot, which is told from two points of view, involves a series of ritual murders in Miami investigated by Cuban-American detective Jimmy Paz. Paz knows the crimes have a "voodoo" connection but his own disdain for Santeria colors his thinking. The other central character is an anthropologist named Jane Doe, whose bizarre experiences in Africa may hold the key to the murders. Third person chapters alternate between Jane and Jimmy's POV, while Jane's African journal is woven in.
Now to the upsetting part: the murders are being committed by Jane's husband Witt, a well-known African American writer (no spoilers, this is revealed early on)...We're asked to believe that a successful, intellectual, African-American writer would travel to Africa and IMMEDIATELY fall under the spell of African religions....Did Denzel Washington join the Nation of Islam after playing Malcolm X? For that matter, every nonwhite character in this book except Paz comes under the influence of either Santeria or African religion.....Despite this flaw, which bothered me progressively more as I read, I enjoyed this intellectual thriller....Be Careful Mr. Gruber......
Rating:
Summary: Murder & Voodoo, Tense & Frightening
Review: Recovering from a marriage that went south, Jane Claire Doe met a handsome young black poet named Witt Moore. Moore's first play was a satire about white America, it's safe to say that Witt harbors a few grudges against white people. However Jane falls in love with him and they marry. When Jane, who is an anthropologist with a specialty in shamanism, gets invited to join a team of anthropologists studying the Olo tribe in West Africa, Witt goes with her. Witt learns about the Olo religion and is transformed. He comes to believe the world needs a black Hitler and he believes that he fills the bill. Back in the States, Witt uses the new powers he's acquired and kills someone. This scares the holy you know what out of Jane and she fakes suicide and flees.
She's hiding out in a low income Florida neighborhood when she sees a woman abusing her daughter. Jane intervenes and during the struggle accidently kills the woman. Now Jane has a little girl to take care of.
Shortly after that she learns about the ritual murder of a pregnant woman and from the description of the crime she immediately knows Witt is practicing the forbidden Olo fourfold sacrifice. Once he has killed four pregnant women and their babies, and eaten parts of them, he will supposedly get superhuman powers, which Jane fears he will use against white America. As more victims are found, Jane comes out of hiding and joins forces with the police to try and stop the murders and defeat her ex.
The police investigation is headed by detectives Jimmy Paz and Cletis Barlow. Paz is Afro-Cuban, a ladies man and smart as a whip. Barlow is a fundamentalist Christian who has no problem believing in witchcraft, as he believes that Satan is a crafty guy.
So there you have the genisis of this horror-mystery-thriller genre jumping novel that is just about the best book that I read in 2004. Well crafted characters, scary bits that would scare even King and Koontz, description that puts you right in the scene and to top it all off, a story you will never forget. Storytelling just doesn't get any better than this.
Andy Raven, Raving United Fan
Rating:
Summary: A lot of work
Review: It takes a long time to get to a place where you've been before, a crazed beyond-human serial killer. Some interesting facts, but a good editor might have made it more rewarding.
Rating: 
Summary: HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT!!!
Review: I really resent it when reviewers tell me what a great read a book is & then I get buried in a dumpster of overripe & overabundant verbiage.
Actually I should have been suspicious when I saw that the author is a PHD in marine biology. If doctoral candidates excel at anything beyond their area of academic discipline it's the ability to fill hundreds of pages with impressive-sounding information - chunks of tantalizing data that may or may not relate to the topic at hand.
Which is exactly the problem with this book. It starts off terrifically. Great first sentence, dynamite action, very specific point of view.
But then those gimmicky alternate threads intrude. A journal to dispense the lead character's back-story (& to dispell any mystery about her that the primary thread builds up) full of the cliches of bodice-rippers: Incredibly handsome & gifted highly fallbible men, etc. A colorful representative of a double-underclass with his own cliche-ridden milieu. By the middle of the book all 3 threads become burdened with stupefylingly dense doses of more information about obscure mystic tribes from Siberia to Africa than I ever wanted to know about - from a mystery/thriller anyway. I've had my quota of Levi-Strauss & Unmberto Eco for a lifetime, thanks.
Rating: 
Summary: Never wanted this to end
Review: The title of this stunning debut mystery has echoes of Henry Miller. This is appropriate, since Tropic of Night does for Cuba, Africa, anthropology, and the politics of race and religion what Miller did for Cole Porter-era Bohemian Paris.
What's the bad news? Michael Gruber tries to take a leaf from his sorcerer subjects and tries verbal and character slight-of-hand to see how many times he can sneak in racial commentary bordering on unintentional self-parody. Liberal whites have white guilt. Upper-class Cubans look down on Cubans who look like they might fix the transmission on the professor's Lexus. Still, there has to be one flaw in this big bad voodoo diamond of a mystery. Like the illusions created by dark sorcery, nothing is what it seems in this mystery. Jane Doe, the heroine, does wicked aikido. Jimmy Paz, the hunky detective hero (who discovers his mother, Margarita Paz, is actually a practitioner of the Cuban religion Santeria recently featured on an episode of TV's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit), and Jane don't end up together. Finally, Jimmy, like the reader, becomes a believer in magic.
This is also a terrific exploration of the subcultures of Miami, Florida.
Rating:
Summary: So,so...
Review: Without going into the plot here, plenty of other reviews have done so, Tropic of Night is one of the most suspenseful and frightening books I've read in a long time. The logical and clear way the world of sorcery is brought alive here places the book firmly in the fringes of the "real" world, and tears down the protective barrier that keeps us safe from most fantastic fiction. Through out the course of reading this book I found myself constantly looking over my shoulder in crowded places and jumping at every shadow and noise when home alone. I though the ending came too quick and neat, the only reason I gave it 4 instead of 5 stars. I recommend it for anyone who wants a gripping suspense and anyone who needs to be jarred from their "reality."
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