THIS IS A WONDERFUL NOVEL FROM SEVERAL STANDPOINTS. IT IS PAINSTAKINGLY RESEARCHED, LITERATE WITHOUT BEING PRETENTIOUS, INTERWEAVES SEVERAL SUBPLOTS SEAMLESSLY INTO THE TEXT AND FOR THOSE OF US WHO ARE INTERESTED, OPENS A HITHERTO CLOSED WINDOW ON A BELIEF SYSTEM THAT AT LEAST 5 MILLIONS AMERICANS SHARE'

I read TROPIC OF NIGHT following a Martin Cruz Smith recommendation posted on his web site. Michael Gruber's writing has a lot in common with Smith, witty, intelligent and knowledge rich. The genre here is a mix of crime and fantastic. Kudos for all the Nigerian and Siberian supernatural anthro stuff. Difficult to follow but creative. The strength of this novel is the central character Jane Doe, female anthropologist. All the strong writing comes from or is about her and her newfound daughter Luz. The other principal character, the investigating Miami Cuban cop Jimmy Paz is not that interesting, and neither is his partner. The story is two to three stars only, but the real pleasure is in the pudding ingredients : this guy can really write.

The title of this review refers to this reader's inability to juggle the pieces in the beginning into a creative whole. The three stars refer to the brilliant writing of Mr. Gruber, who because of his considerable talent somehow manages to hook the readers' attention into a sprawling, confused and at times unbearably uninteresting book. The characters are intriguing but Mr. Gruber spends far too much time on describing inane supernatural phenomena, which might be of some anthropological value to students in grad school but of no interest to the general reader. Even Paz,(who stands out over Jane Doe), spends all his time in sexual wrestling with his girl friends, hardly does anything. Things happen, things get exposed and Paz dutifully shoots the villain in the end.
I am looking forward to Mr. Gruber's next novel, hope he has found a better perspective since completing this novel.If There Wasn't Death

Why was it interesting? It was interesting to me in the suspension of belief sort of thing. But the anthropology was hard to follow and more than I cared to follow about west african mojo. Jane's journal was very personal in an unpleasant out-of-her-mind way. The olo, ifa, ulene stuff was over-detailed and forced me to work too hard to decipher the plot in all of it. The author's expression of Jane's mind was unsettling and the racism of the book was too guilt-ridden. It was a little scary when Witt would "come" for her - that's a good thing. But in the end I was disappointed that the entire story was just about the magic and suspension of western beliefs. Certainly an intelligent writer, and intelligence appreciated. But this book was not my cup of tea.

The extent to which a reader will enjoy this book depends, I believe, on the expectations one has about it. If you are looking for a pulse pounding thriller in the vein of Thomas Harris' Red Dragon or Silence of the Lambs, this is not it. What you get here instead is a thoughtful, carefully researched meditation on good versus evil, reality versus madness, and the spiritual versus the physical worlds. The story is told, in part, from the dispassionate objectivity of a cultural anthropologist and draws heavily on anthropology's style and language. Alternating points of view shift back and forth in time as the story traverses the globe from Miami, Florida to West Africa and Eastern Europe. The rituals of the indigenous peoples of these areas are extensively described in long expository passages that make little sense until more of the plot is revealed. The alternating chapters and shifting perspective dilute the suspense, and I had to force myself to continue reading. The female protagonist was difficult to identify with as so little was known about her for much of the book. Gruber slowly doles out only the smallest bits of information. Jimmy Paz, on the other hand, is a fascinating character and the only redeeming feature of this novel. The story's slow, plodding pace picks up somewhat in the final hundred pages, but, by that point, I found myself no longer caring.