A Review
This new release from Crown Cipher Publishing is not what it seems. Readers who expect the stereotypical Black thug story will find disappointment. Alonzo J. Crippen is, as the bio note describes, "a gritty new voice in urban fiction." That said the writing is smooth, at points lyrical, and is the most wonderful aspect of the novel. CJ, the self-described, "lone wolf" runs a drug racket, yet he manages to come across more as a soul groping for survival rather than a self-described “monster.” Again, credit the writing.
In fact, at some points in the later chapters of Crippen’s debut novel the sentences become repetitive. Nonetheless, the work is insightful. I was put off by the initial warnings about "sensitive content" when I saw, The Monster Behind the Silence on the review list. I expected the language and tone to be broadly offensive to most readers. Instead, I discovered a page-turner that keeps the suspense until the final sentence.
Crippen's prose is as tight as a lug nut on a Formula One racer. For example, "His uncle fixed mufflers. His cousin ran dice. MMC? He watched. Learned. Broke things down and built 'em better."
The taut sentence structure forces readers to sail on the prose until they are wrapped in the spare, unadorned coming of age story that cannot soon be forgotten. More than that, the tale humanizes the world of hustlers as CJ shows that those who walk in his crew are not the majority of the people who live in urban neighborhoods.
"Call me myth," he declares. "Call me ghost. Call me what they whisper when the streets get too quiet.
"But don’t ever forget — I’m the monster beside the silence."
Some of CJ's best lines are descriptions. He says of his "blood cousin from across the bridge," C Shine, "At only 21, he moved like a man with a 20-year head start. You never saw him twice in the same ride, and if you did, it was a trap."
I did not find monsters in Crippen's New York. I saw people who make bad choices, largely because they expect to come out ahead. The tale does not soft pedal crime. CJ, like many criminals, is sure he has the game figured out, yet smart enough to stay wary.