Cohen, Gabriel 1961-

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COHEN, Gabriel 1961-

PERSONAL: Born 1961. Hobbies and other interests: Playing guitar and practicing tai chi.

ADDRESSES: Home—Brooklyn, NY. Agent—St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010.

CAREER: Writer. Has worked as a reporter, teacher, waiter, script reader, musician, and researcher.

AWARDS, HONORS: Nominated for Edgar Allan Poe Award, Mystery Writers of America, 2002, for Red Hook.

WRITINGS:

Red Hook, Thomas Dunne Books (New York, NY), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS: Gabriel Cohen's debut novel Red Hook features Detective Jack Leightner, who grew up in a part of working-class Brooklyn that has since become weakened and depressed and infested with crack dealers. Marilyn Stasio wrote in the New York Times Book Review that Cohen "gives you a real feeling for the neighborhood." Jack returns to Red Hook to investigate the stabbing death of Dominican Tomas Berrios, a hardworking young married man with two children whose body was about to be thrown in the river with concrete blocks tied to his legs when his killers were spotted. Jack has been involved with hundreds of murder cases, but when he and Detective Gary Daskivitch view the corpse, Jack vomits. Jack becomes obsessed with the murder, but in returning to Red Hook, he is forced to face his own demons: his failed marriage, the death of his fifteen-year-old brother, and the emotional disconnectedness of his alienated son Ben. In his loneliness, Jack becomes depressed and drinks to excess, and his only friend is his landlord, Mr. Gardner, with whom he often drinks beer and watches television in the evening.

Karen G. Anderson reviewed Red Hook for January online, saying that the story "is rich with character and blessedly devoid of stereotypes. The gang of young Hispanic men we meet in the novel's prologue seem ominous at first glance, but it turns out they've gathered only to ride their racing bikes through the night." "Humor lightens—just barely—Leightner's love life, which consists of a tawdry relationship with an attractive but bitter Columbia University instructor, Sheila Dixon," continued Anderson. "Preoccupied by the Berrios case, uneasy about the relationship that has little going for it outside of sex, Leightner finds himself imagining Sheila's living room as a murder scene and Sheila as the victim."

Library Journal contributor Jo Ann Vicarel commented that Cohen "has included elements of the literary novel, the police procedural, and the mystery but has forgotten the basics of each." A Publishers Weekly writer, on the other hand, found that "this first effort from Cohen works both as a good mystery and a literary novel. It is better than promising (may the gods take note): it is accomplished." Expressing similar enthusiasm, Booklist's Connie Fletcher wrote that "this compelling novel offers an amazingly deft mystery of character."