Cruisers: A Novel - Hardcover

Nova, Craig

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1400045363 ISBN 13: 9781400045365

Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books, 2004

Synopsis

Frank Kohler is ready to snap. He is capable of love, but he knows time is running out. His mother was brutally murdered, and he never knew his father. With each passing day he perceives his anger with an almost religious sense of beauty. In an attempt to save himself, he decides to marry a mail-order bride from Russia.

Russell Boyd is a state trooper who resists those acts that damage life forever. He has seen about as much of them as he can take. And yet, he has met the woman who makes him feel whole. She is the center of his life.

Frank Kohler’s and Russell Boyd’s paths will cross three times. And the third time will change everything. It is the moment when the line between good and evil is made dramatically clear.

As with such modern classics as Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River and Graham Greene’s The Heart of the Matter, Craig Nova gives us an illuminating story of characters who struggle against the collisions of fate, and who are motivated by the touching need to be human.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"Nova executes like a chess master, all the while ratcheting up the tension and calling into question any sense of security, order, or reason. Like the best of noir, Nova's unsettling novels, serpentine in their structure, speed, and toxic bite, remind us that while dark forces are always present, we must embrace love."
-Booklist

"CRUISERS just made me hold my breath. It's so intense, it blew me away. Sentence by sentence, the book is just fabulous."
-Ann Beattie

"Thrilling, intense, as arresting as blue lights flashing in the rear view mirror, Craig Nova's CRUISERS takes the reader on a high speed chase through a psychological landscape that is by turns menacing, violent, and inexplicably tender. This is a powerful novel, comparable to Graham Greene in the complexity of its moral vision, yet Nova's prose is thoroughly American, as straightforward and seductive as the fate that steadily draws his characters into firing range of each other. Craig Nova is a great writer and this is his best book yet. I couldn't put it down."
-Valerie Martin, author of Property and Mary Reilly

"Craig Nova's new novel, Cruisers, is a beautifully written exploration of terrorism and subverted love. Frank Kohler is the most frightening literary madman since Hannibal Lecter, and Russell Boyd is the most real and engaging police officer in recent fiction. With Cruisers, acclaimed novelist Craig Nova has taken us into the very heart of the senseless violence besetting our times, and miraculously, out the other side again into hope and redemption."
-Howard Frank Mosher, author of Waiting for Teddy Williams

"Few novelists plumb as deeply as Craig Nova what it means to be human: Our flaws, our joys, and the way every day offers a mixture of hope and dread. Cruisers, like Nova's other work, is rich with the small, beautifully imagined details that make up a life. It is also, however, an absolutely riveting, page-turning drama. You will never look at a state trooper quite the same way again after reading this extraordinary book."
-Chris Bohjalian, bestselling author of Midwives and The Buffalo Soldier

From the Inside Flap

As a child Frank Kohler learned of his mother's brutal murder. Now, years later, he yearns for some affirmation that remains elusive. As a state trooper on the night shift, Russell Boyd cruises the highways of Vermont constantly reminded of the true depths of human misery. The lives of these two men will intersect only tangentially, until fate catches up with them.

About this edition

• Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1400045363
• ISBN 13: 9781400045365
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320