The Monsters of Gramercy Park
Danny Leigh, . . Bloomsbury, $24.95 (344pp) ISBN 978-1-58234-646-5
Although slow at first, the debut novel of 33-year-old Brit Leigh soon reveals itself to be a taut psychological thriller mostly worthy of its Kate Atkinson blurb. Popular crime novelist Lizbeth Greene is on the skids: secretly hooked on junk, she's pregnant by an indifferent boyfriend, and her new book is (surprise) a dud. Desperate to jump-start her declining career, Greene senses a hot story in Wilson Velez, the leader of New York's ultraviolent Sacred Incan Royals gang, who is serving a life sentence and has just finished five years in solitary confinement. Wilson plays a pitiful, demented wreck who still manages to advocate prison reform, write children's stories and claim his innocence; Lizbeth sees only a meal ticket. As the
Reviewed on: 06/27/2005
Genre: Fiction
Paperback - 344 pages - 978-1-59691-004-1