Norman Green's first novel, "Shooting Dr. Jack" (HarperCollins, 288 pages, $25), is a gritty, down-to-earth story about three characters involved in a shady junkyard business on Troutman Street, deep in the underbelly of New York's borough of Brooklyn.
This novel mixes elements of "The Sopranos" and "Traffic" and comes up with the best qualities of both. Green tells an emotionally provocative story while keeping readers on edge with suspense.
Green's greatest triumph is the development of three realistic characters readers can relate to and care about.
Fat Tommy Rosselli is a charming reluctant wiseguy who is loved by everyone, including the police, and stray dogs and cats that cross his path. Always impeccably dressed and polite, Tommy is "the very picture of overweight continental charm."
Stoney, his partner in the junkyard business, is a middle-aged alcoholic family man who commutes from suburban New Jersey. His "real" life stands in stark contrast to the broken-down tenements, prostitutes and drug dealers of Troutman Street, although he feels more at home in this rubble.
Tuco is a street-wise Hispanic kid, an illiterate mechanical genius who works odd jobs at the junkyard. Tuco's innocence, insecurity and pining to be accepted by others are masked by his cunning, street-wise ways.
The junkyard world is turned on its head when Tommy and Stoney's accountant is found dead of multiple gunshot wounds in a squalid motel, his body lying on the junkyard books. His murder opens investigations by the police and the Internal Revenue Service, and sets off a chain of events involving assassinations, setups, intricate schemes, daring rescues and dangerous family reunions. Green avoids campy dialogue and gratuitous detail as he chronicles the hour-by-hour adventures of the main characters.
Another strength of "Shooting Dr. Jack" is the animated description of various neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Staten Island and New Jersey. Green spent years "researching" these areas from behind the wheel of a delivery truck, and it shows.
"Troutman is a one-way street that runs from nowhere to nowhere, from Metropolitan and Flushing avenues at the north end, to Bushwick Avenue at the south, in between Brooklyn and Queens, in between neighborhoods, unwanted and unclaimed."
New Yorkers can follow Green's entertaining depiction of the landscapes and locals, while other readers can experience the pungent flavor of street life in these neighborhoods.
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