Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake) | MYSTERY JAH | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
A compulsively readable debut crime novel inspired by the legendary real-life murder of Kitty Genovese
At 4:00 A.M. on March 13, 1964, a young woman returning home from her shift at a local bar is attacked in the courtyard of her Queens apartment building. Her neighbors hear her cries; no one calls for help.
Unfolding over the course of two hours, Good Neighbors is the story of the woman's last night. It is also the story of her neighbors, the bystanders who kept to themselves: the anxious Vietnam draftee; the former soldier planning suicide; the woman who thinks she's killed a child and her husband, who will risk everything for her. Revealing a fascinating cross-section of American society in expertly interlocking plotlines, Good Neighbors calls to mind the Oscar-winning movie Crash , and its suspense and profound sense of urban menace rank it with Hitchcock's Rear Window and the gritty crime novels of Dennis Lehane, Richard Price, and James Ellroy.
Author Notes
Ryan David Jahn grew up in Arizona, Texas, and California. He finished school at sixteen, worked several odd jobs, and spent time in the army before moving to Los Angeles, where he worked in television and film for several years. His first novel, Good Neighbors , won the Crime Writers' Association John Creasy (New Blood) Dagger Award, and his novel The Dispatcher was longlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award. Translation rights to his books have been sold in twelve languages. Jahn lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with his wife, Jessica, and two daughters, Matilda and Francine.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
For his crime novel debut (which won the CWA John Creasy [New Blood] Dagger Award), Jahn fictionalizes the horrific 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese, whose cries for help during a lengthy stabbing assault went unanswered, but the execution falls a bit short of the intriguing concept. When Katrina Marino returns late one night to her Queens apartment complex from her bar job, a man attacks her in the building's courtyard with a knife. Kat's neighbors hear her screams, but no one bothers to call the police, assuming someone else already has. The intersection of the lives of the people who witness the crime will call to mind films such as Crash, but some readers will wish that the author had explored what led to their fatal indifference. The horror of their apathy occasionally comes through-as when one character turns from his window to mix a drink-but given the raw material to work with, the overall impact is less disturbing than it could have been. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A darkly powerful fictionalization of the last two hours in the life of Kitty Genovese, attacked and killed outside her New York apartment in the early morning hours of March 13, 1964, while her neighbors did nothing.Only steps from her door in a typical Queens neighborhood, Katrina Marino, 28, returning from her job as night manager of a sports bar, is stabbed by an unknown man. Kat is a fighter, and she doesn't take the assault lying down. She fights back; she screams; she begs her neighbors in the building for help. Although four different people hear her and consider phoning the police, none of them does, simply because they're all so involved with their own problems. Patrick Donaldson weighs how to tell his bedridden mother that he's been drafted. Diane Myers waits to confront her husband Larry about his obvious adultery. Thomas Marlowe, Larry's bowling teammate, contemplates suicide. Peter and Anne Adams indulge in their first taste of spouse-swapping with Ron and Bettie Paulson. Frank Riva, terrified that his wife Erin may have struck a child with her car, sets off to see what he can learn. Emergency Medical Technician David White catches up with the molester who abused him as a child. Officer Alan Kees takes steps to deal with an extortionist. Debut novelist Jahn inhabits these people and their problems so completely and convincingly that they don't seem like monsters even as they ignore the woman who's dying only a few yards away.Since Kat Marino is, for better or worse, the least-interesting person here, it's well worth watching to see what Jahn can do in a novel that isn't based on a real-life person.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* In Queens, at about four in the morning on a March day in 1964, a young woman is attacked by a man wielding a knife. The attack takes place in the courtyard of the apartment complex in which she lives and is witnessed or heard by several of the woman's neighbors, who, for various reasons, do little or nothing to help. This intensely gripping novel, based on events surrounding the real-life murder of Kitty Genovese, explores the lives of these neighbors the young Vietnam draftee, the swingers, the middle-aged man contemplating suicide, and others shifting between them as Jahn builds a picture of the crime and its aftermath. Fans of Hitchcock's Rear Window will be on familiar ground, but there's no Jimmy Stewart here, just an assortment of men and women who are more concerned with their own lives than that of a dying woman. The historical setting isn't just treated as window dressing, either. Jahn isn't writing about any batch of fictional characters but about a specific group of people in this time and place. The book'. sixties fee. isn't window dressing but an integral part of the story. A fine and memorable novel.--Pitt, Davi. Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
This debut, first published in Britain as Acts of Violence, is based on the notorious 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens, NY, less than 200 yards from where this reviewer lives. But regardless of how far your home is from Austin Street, Jahn's tale is compelling, slick, exuberant, flash, funny, fierce, and cinematic. The ironic title refers to the victim's neighbors who observe the young woman's struggle to escape her attacker yet don't intervene because "someone else will do it" and they're preoccupied with their own dramas. Some of the neighbors verge on stereotype (swinging couples, a closeted gay man, a mercy killer), but Jahn pulls off their multiple stories expertly. Deftly written with panache and polish, this commentary on the ennui engendered by urban anonymity earned the author the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger 2010 Award. Verdict This remarkable novel, a lean, psychologically unsettling noir tale, will stay with you long after you put it down and regretfully say, "I wish I wrote that."-Seamus Scanlon, Ctr. for Worker Education, CUNY (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
