Recently I’ve been reading some non-fiction and really enjoyed those books but large non-fiction books can be a bit slow and since I liked the crime fiction by Gabriel Cohen, I thought I would give myself a treat with a couple of his books that were on my “to read” list. These would be “The Graving Dock” and “Neptune Avenue”. And as expected, both were much faster and enjoyable in a different way.

In the past few months, I reviewed 2 books by Gabriel Cohen: “The Ninth Step” and “Red Hook”. I really liked both, the first and fourth in a series about Detective Jack Leightner. “The Graving Dock” and “Neptune Avenue” are and second and third.

Gabriel Cohen’s books are crime novels, they are so much more. Jack grew up near the docks in Red Hook, Brooklyn and is haunted by his childhood (his relationship with his father and the death of his brother mostly) and his failures as an adult (especially a failed marriage, an uneasy relationship with his son, and difficulties in relationships). All in this series have been excellent reads and now that I’ve read all 4 in the series to date, I guess I’ll just have to wait for the next.

Since the sense of place is so important in Gabriel Cohen’s novels, these books are wonderful for those who either know Brooklyn or want to know more about Brooklyn. By the way, a graving dock is a dry dock and is used to repair ships below the water line. And Neptune Avenue is in Brooklyn, the Coney Island, Brighton Beach area.

So I’ll finish up with a few links you might find useful or interesting:

Amazon’s Gabriel Cohen Page

Gabriel Cohen’s website

saveindustrialbrooklyn.org

Last month I was at the Brooklyn Book Festival and I attended a panel discussion there featuring crime writers. I am a fan of Michael Connolly and he was on the panel so I thought it might be interesting. Also on the panel was Gabriel Cohen. I never had read anything by him but had read that he wrote about a detective in Brooklyn and I thought since I was in Brooklyn, it might be interesting to hear him. He read from the first chapter of his new book. It was just a few pages but I immediately knew that I wanted to read that book.

In his new book, “The Ninth Step” the action starts with the detective at home eating his breakfast. Not very exciting, right ? Then the doorbell rings and the person at the door starts telling a story with much vagueness. Then comes the hook: the man at the door killed the brother of the detective years ago.

If that is not enough to make you want to read this, let me add a few bits. The detective wants to find something that will help solve the cold case of his brother’s murder for which he feels partly at fault. Then the cold case of his brother’s murder moves from an apparently random robbery into the Mafia, longshoremen, and a little known World War 2 event. The detective also is involved with solving what seems to be a rather routine but odd murder which gets involved in a possible terrorist plot, massive injustice, Homeland Security, and more. Part of fun and value of this book is the way the author handles these events (and often surprised me in the process) so I really don’t want to say too much here in case you decide to try this book.

“The Ninth Step” stands on its own as a great read but it is the 4th in a series about Detective Jack Leightner. I completely enjoyed it and plan to look for the earlier books in this series.