Patti S. (Pattakins) reviewed on 3/22/2007 + 365 more book reviews

Michael Gruber's "Tropic Of Night" is an imaginative, supernatural thriller which ultimately combines the paralleling experiences of its two main characters.

Jane Doe an aspiring anthropologist hailing from an affluent family on the North Shore of Long Island is presently living a meagre existence hiding under an assumed name in Miami. She was led to this by her professional associations which saw her travel into the steppes of Siberia. With an eminent colleague she spent years studying among the mysterious Chenka tribe purveyors of a powerful form of sorcery.

Years later, now an expert on sorcery and shamanism and married to Dewitt Moore an African American poet, Doe and her husband travel to Mali to study the customs of witchcraft under the Olo tribe. While there Moore falls under the influence of an evil and powerful shaman and becomes one himself. Doe fearing for her life flees and fakes her own death keeping underground.

Meanwhile back in Miami Cuban American detective Jimmy Paz gets called in to investigate a ritualistic murder where a pregnant woman had been murdered along with her fetus which had been surgically removed from her uterus. Appparently certain body parts had been consumed in which turned out to be a ritual design to bestow upon the murderer untold evil powers of sorcery. The mothered Paz whose mom secretly was a priestess in the practice of Santeria gets drawn into a fantastic and implausibe plot of supernatural powers. He eventually partners with Jane Doe in an attempt to thwart the serial murderer who by that time had committed two additional murders with the same m.o.

Gruber in his intial novel pushes the envelope of believability in his novel. Some sections chronicling Jane Doe African experiences tend to bog down but the book is nonetheless a compelling read.

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