Rudy Gray: 2 books

first-rate work.The writing is excellent throughout: the characters are well drawn, interesting and sharply differentiated; the dialogue is trenchant and lively; the atmosphere captures the world in which these people live and act; and most of all, the story, the narrative is suspenseful and imminently...

It is the early 1980s. The nice suburban North Bronx neighborhood of Baychester inches downward. Its courage and self-pride wane. Burglaries and gang activity increase. Murders, unintentional or plotted, are up. The police who care are discouraged. Crack-cocaine proliferates, particularly among the...