Rating: 
Summary: Delicious
Review: I don't like thrillers. I get annoyed by mystery writing that involves exotic poisons and religions. I abhor violence. Intricate plots bore me. And I loved this book. I loved it because I loved the mind of the main character, the way she thinks and expresses her thoughts. I love the inner and outer worlds that this novel travels, and among the geographical locations I especially enjoyed reading about the different Miami subcultures - I'm not American and had no previous familiarity - and was deeply fascinated by the description of an imagined hidden African village, untouched by anything un-African. Above all else, this book is intelligent fiction, and with all the hack writing and hack politics and hell, hack living that's just rampant these days, what a refreshing change.
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: HOODOO WHAT
Review: I have nothing against what has come to be known as the "literary thriller." I guess this means that it's supposed to be more than a thriller, and compare to writers like Dostoevsky, Hemingway, Fitzgerald? Amazingly, Gruber's first novel demonstrates his skills with the use of words. In my opinion, too many words. I found the whole inclusion of Jane Doe's journal not only vague, confusing and rambling, but boring. The narrative part of the novel, however, was spellbinding in its own way and I really liked the characters of Jane Doe, Paz and Barlow. However, the invasion of the journal entries, merely served to deflect the suspense of the novel, and does anyone really want to know all those different African luminaries? If a writer does this to show off his research abilities, this is unpardonable. I want to be informed of things necessary for the plot, but there is so much hoodoo and funny words, I found myself yawning, when I should have felt the terror the rest of the book so hauntingly portrays. Hopefully next time out Gruber's "literary thriller" will be at least a little more literate.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Book!
Review: I listened to it on cassette. I couldn't wait to get in my car to hear what came next. I'm not for sure why a couple of the reviews found it to be 'tedious'. It is a solid story that is extremely compelling. I can't believe this is Gruber's first novel.
Rating:
Summary: Audacious indeed!
Review: I love the reviewer who gave this book only one star and used the word "audacious" negatively. If you don't know how to read in the first place, please don't write reviews of books. That's besides the point! Tropic of Night is quite ingenius. The cover art really is unfortunate, as it makes it seem like a run-of-the-mill pulp thriller, when it is more thriller meets sociological masterwork (an intertwining of the nature of magic, perception and racism). Buy and read this book immediately. And to the reviewer who thought this was only his first novel, a correction: It is popularly known that Gruber actually wrote the majority of Robert K. Tanenbaum's Ciampi-Karp legal thrillers (about fifteen of them I think), almost all of which are extremely good.
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: Would have given it zero if possible
Review: I must not have read the same book as everyone else. Either that or I just completely missed the boat.
I could not even bring myself to finish this tiresome, tedious book. I tried so hard to find a way to care what happened but just couldn't do it. Jane Doe is the perfect name for the "heroine". Drivel, drivel, drivel characterizes her every appearance in this novel. Jimmy Paz has potential but alas it goes unrealized.
I didn't even bother to bring the book back from vacation. I only hope some unsuspecting soul doesn't pick it up.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: I read a lot of what would generically be called literary fiction and a lot of what would generically be called thrillers. As such, I'm always excited to hear about a novel being touted as a "literary thriller," a book that works on both levels. Alas, these books are almost usually disappointments, mediocre works by authors who don't have the chops to write either great novels or great thrillers. So I picked up Tropic of Night with both excitement and skepticism. And, boy, am I happy I did. You'd be hard pressed to find the depth of character, the richness of theme and the sheer, exhilirating intelligence that Tropic exhibits in the best of today's literary fiction; you'd be just as hard pressed to find Tropic's intense momementum, nailbiting suspense and narrative juice in the best of today's thrillers. It's just an out-and-out masterpiece. Read it -- it's simply amazing.
Rating:
Summary: It ain't hype
Review: 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' ..
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.
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