Rating: 
Summary: Fine story of a desperate man's decline.
Review: Brooklyn Assistant D.A. Andy "Gio" Giobberti is not a very attractive guy. He's a self-pitying womanizer who drinks too much and has little but contempt for his job, his colleagues, even himself. He wasn't always like that. But when his carelessness caused the death of his five-year-old daughter, life, and everything else, lost most of its meaning for him.Gio's latest case is the apparent homicide of a young African American girl who was shot point-blank while lying in her bed at home. The obvious suspect is drug dealer "LL" who was seen fleeing the scene. Gio is ready to put him away, despite the lack of motive or any solid evidence. His own feelings of guilt have more to do with that than the merits of the case. Readers looking for "the next John Grisham" will probably be disappointed by Reuland's book. It's not a legal thriller at all. But if you're interested in a touching story of a man's pain and self-destruction, you should find a lot to appreciate in "Hollowpoint."
Rating: 
Summary: Exceptional!
Review: Here is one of those rare, utterly authentic books that could only have been written by someone who's experienced the raw, unpretty aspects of the life it depicts. In Hollowpoint, first-novelist Reuland (and in real life, senior DA in Brooklyn) gives us two very distinctive views of grief, as well as offering a plotline that snakes in on itself in endless coils. It's a book about pain, about guilt, and about sorrow. It contains some of the finest, most authentic dialogue I've ever read and depicts some of the most believable characters to be found anywhere. This is not easy reading, but it's a book that's impossible to put down. Sadly humorous, poignant, and wrenching. Most highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Probably better to read it than to listen to it
Review: I checked the audiobook out of the library. I must first say that I can't be completely fair because I am returning the tapes, and I haven't made it through the first. The narrator is awful. The book probably would be better read than listened to.
Rating:
Summary: Not a cozy Agatha Christie story
Review: I highly recommend this novel to those readers like me who are tired of formulaic mysteries with predictable characters and plots. Mr. Rueland's first novel transcends the mystery genre and delivers a powerful story of guilt and forgiveness. Excellent descriptive prose, hard-edged style and terrific dialog carry the story line beyond the normal range of most mystery writers. Not a cozy Agatha Christie story, but a harsh, sobering look at murder and its consequences.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointment for Sure!
Review: I usually don't read a book unless I have researched it quite extensively first. Therefore, most of my reviews tend to be very positive. Time is so limited one has to be very selective in what they read because there are so many wonderful books out there to be read yet!! I was thrilled to finally get this book, but totally disappointed after reading it. It written in easy, simple language, and I thought it would be a quick read. I struggled to get through it, and finally did. I almost gave up more than once. It's a great story that just seems to wander all over the place. Assistant DA Giobberti, from one of the most murderous precincts in Brooklyn, is given the case of Kayla, a young 14 year old girl found dead with a gunshot wound to the heart. This case strikes home for Gio who recently lost his 5 year old daughter, Opal, to an unfortunate accident which Gio feels was his fault. He's lost interest in his job, drifts along aimlessly, mourning his daughter and his separation from his wife, Amanda. The murder case is good fiction & almost interesting, and could make this book worth reading, but is so dragged out that you want to scream by the end. While we're waiting for the murder to be solved, we're left with endless chapters of his cruising various woman that he works with. At times the story just drifts too far off course. I had no feeling for anybody in this novel, and hope now to forget them all. I'm sorry to say I didn't enjoy this book at all. The END!
Rating:
Summary: Can anything grow in Brooklyn?
Review: If the left scale is the lighter side of crime fiction (Leonard, Hiaasen, Shames) and the right is darker (Lehane, TJ Parker, Pelecanos), Rob Reuland is on the right edge. It's not a lot of violence that puts him there but the bleak, decadent, self-pitying nature of his leading man, Brooklyn Asst. D.A. Andrew (Gio pronounced "Joe") Giobberti. Fourteen-year-old Kayla Harris is shot with a hollowpoint bullet, Giobberti has the case and the obvious suspect Lamar Lamb ("LL") may not be the guy. Gio is either too hardened or too ambivalent to believe in LL's innocence. His assistant Stacey Sharpe is one year out of law school, throws off some Allie McBeal mannerisms but will never shake her working class roots, and is more concerned with getting at the truth than Gio is. This book is not about the case but the characters. At 38 Gio is both a little too old for the life he lives and at the same time too young to have given up as he has. After the death of his five-year-old daughter a year earlier, Gio has been hopping in and out of bars and beds in a Brooklyn sketched in black and white. Stacey, whether it's because her father committed suicide when she was seventeen or something else, seems ready and willing to jump in the sack with whomever. Gio is a convenient if not compatible partner. When Reuland tells the story in language taken from the Brooklyn surroundings, it works well. All too often, however, he brushes in words that are too flowery for the scene or has Giobberti talk about golf or make an improbable literary reference, and it loses somethng. Two morality plays toward the end weigh heavy, particularly using Kayla's half-sister Utopia as the voice for one, waxing in a sixteen-year-old's voice of the 'hood, which just doesn't ring true. Toward the end I decided I would let my final rating ride on the last chapter which, unfortunately, I thought was overwritten and overreaching, again taking characters out of the roles they had played to deliver a message that was more than the story needed. So I gave it 3 stars not 4, but I wanted to like it more.
Rating:
Summary: Can anything grow in Brooklyn?
Review: If the left scale is the lighter side of crime fiction (Leonard, Hiaasen, Shames) and the right is darker (Lehane, TJ Parker, Pelecanos), Rob Reuland is on the right edge. It's not a lot of violence that puts him there but the bleak, decadent, self-pitying nature of his leading man, Brooklyn Asst. D.A. Andrew (Gio pronounced "Joe") Giobberti. Fourteen-year-old Kayla Harris is shot with a hollowpoint bullet, Giobberti has the case and the obvious suspect Lamar Lamb ("LL") may not be the guy. Gio is either too hardened or too ambivalent to believe in LL's innocence. His assistant Stacey Sharpe is one year out of law school, throws off some Ally McBeal mannerisms but will never shake her working class roots, and is more concerned with getting at the truth than Gio is. This book is not about the case but the characters. At 38 Gio is both a little too old for the life he lives and at the same time too young to have given up as he has. After the death of his five-year-old daughter a year earlier, Gio has been hopping in and out of bars and beds in a Brooklyn sketched in black and white. Stacey, whether it's because her father committed suicide when she was seventeen or something else, seems ready and willing to jump in the sack with whomever. Gio is a convenient if not compatible partner. When Reuland tells the story in language taken from the Brooklyn surroundings, it works well. All too often, however, he brushes in words that are too flowery for the scene or has Giobberti talk about golf or make an improbable literary reference, and it loses somethng. Two morality plays toward the end weigh heavy, particularly using Kayla's half-sister Utopia as the voice for one, waxing in a sixteen-year-old's voice of the 'hood, which just doesn't ring true. Toward the end I decided I would let my final rating ride on the last chapter which, unfortunately, I thought was overwritten and overreaching, again taking characters out of the roles they had played to deliver a message that was more than the story needed. So I gave it 3 stars not 4, but I wanted to like it more.
Rating:
Summary: A good sleeping sedative!
Review: Look up "hyperbole" in the Oxford English dictionary and adjacent to it you will find "Hollowpoint". I found Reuland's language pretentious at best, cumbersome at worst. Once i waded through the opening chapters and emerged at the other side, i was a weaker version of my former self. I even got the distinct impression that Reuland himself got fed-up, as soon the language changed to a more familiar one...English! I would give the book 1 star, but its one saving grace was when it ended! Avoid...unless you suffer from insomnia!
Rating:
Summary: Caveat Emptor
Review: This is a well-written novel about crime, but not a novel that meets the expectations of those seeking 'crime fiction.' This is art fiction, short on incident, long on characterization. While it held my attention it was not in any way suspenseful. Nor was it comic. Something bad has happened to a good man. We eventually learn the mundane but still shattering details. In the meantime he is working on another case which ultimately elucidates his own situation. That's about it, along with some reflections on Brooklyn which are nicely done. This is not, however, a heavily textured reflection on place of the sort associated with a master like James Lee Burke. While the Brooklyn portrayed is darker than Jonathan Lethem's it is not so fully realized as to be a central presence in its own right. My guess is that readers of art fiction are generally not readers of crime fiction and the former may have taken this novel to be the sort of thing read by the latter. It isn't, but it's well done.
Rating:
Summary: Caveat Emptor
Review: This is a well-written novel about crime, but not a novel that meets the expectations of those seeking 'crime fiction.' This is art fiction, short on incident, long on characterization. While it held my attention it was not in any way suspenseful. Nor was it comic. Something bad has happened to a good man. We eventually learn the mundane but still shattering details. In the meantime he is working on another case which ultimately elucidates his own situation. That's about it, along with some reflections on Brooklyn which are nicely done. This is not, however, a heavily textured reflection on place of the sort associated with a master like James Lee Burke. While the Brooklyn portrayed is darker than Jonathan Lethem's it is not so fully realized as to be a central presence in its own right. My guess is that readers of art fiction are generally not readers of crime fiction and the former may have taken this novel to be the sort of thing read by the latter. It isn't, but it's well done.
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