Become a Readings Member to make your shopping experience even easier. Sign in or sign up for free!

Become a Readings Member. Sign in or sign up for free!

Hello Readings Member! Go to the member centre to view your orders, change your details, or view your lists, or sign out.

Hello Readings Member! Go to the member centre or sign out.

 
Paperback

Brooklyn Motto

$29.99
Sign in or become a Readings Member to add this title to your wishlist.

This title is printed to order. This book may have been self-published. If so, we cannot guarantee the quality of the content. In the main most books will have gone through the editing process however some may not. We therefore suggest that you be aware of this before ordering this book. If in doubt check either the author or publisher’s details as we are unable to accept any returns unless they are faulty. Please contact us if you have any questions.

"Brooklyn Motto is a stylish, propulsive mystery that beautifully captures late 90s New York City in the convulsions of enormous social and economic change. Alex Johnson combines novelistic texture with cinematic pace to great effect, and narrator Nico Kelly is the perfect guide to this world full of danger, corruption, and also hope." - Sam Lipsyte, author of No One Left to Come Looking for You

"Alex R. Johnson's playful, witty, brooding, and heartfelt Brooklyn Motto is everything readers of classic private detective fiction could want - but placed in the nothing-like-classic East Village and Brooklyn of 1998. Brimming with distinctive characters, clever language, and crisp observations, the book is a thoroughly engaging and deeply satisfying read. I tore through it and had a lot of fun." - Evan Handler, actor; author of Time On Fire: A Comedy of Terrors and It's Only Temporary: The Good News and the Bad News of Being Alive

"[Brooklyn Motto] is an inventive hard-boiled mash-up starring a reluctant GenX PI who accidentally finds himself in way over his head. His backstory and future relies on a complicated extended family and their immigrant Brooklyn culture. A love letter to NYC & detective fiction." - John Doe (X), musician, actor and author of Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk and More Fun in the New World: The Unmaking and Legacy of L.A. Punk

--

Fans of Richard Price, Charlie Huston, and Jonathan Lethem will love this coming-of-age New York-centric detective noir debut from esteemed filmmaker and screenwriter Alex R. Johnson.

New York City, 1998. New York is changing around Nico Kelly, and he can feel more coming.

A private investigator and self-proclaimed photographer, Nico is stuck in a loop of city contracts and self loathing. What little middle class there was is disappearing-long-standing factories are moving out and taking their reliable neighborhood jobs with them, and Mayor Rudy Giuliani's police force has the streets in a stranglehold.

Nico spends his days looking for fraudsters while taking photos of municipal employees on disability claims. He spends his nights trying to get rid of the nagging feeling that his day job makes him a professional snitch-traversing dive bars, playing pinball, and fighting through the haze of hungover mornings and blurry evenings.

Pushing thirty years old and feeling split between his American and Latin heritage, between youth and adulthood, Nico finds himself at a precipice-who is he and what should he become?

When Nico witnesses and records a murder during one of his insurance fraud investigations, bodies start to turn up all around him and he's forced into solving a mystery he didn't ask to solve. Humorous, gritty, and real, Nico's search for what it means to be human takes him through the deepest and darkest parts of New York City.

Read More
In Shop
Out of stock
Shipping & Delivery

$9.00 standard shipping within Australia
FREE standard shipping within Australia for orders over $100.00
Express & International shipping calculated at checkout

MORE INFO
Format
Paperback
Publisher
Hfi
Date
11 March 2025
Pages
276
ISBN
9798218524012

This title is printed to order. This book may have been self-published. If so, we cannot guarantee the quality of the content. In the main most books will have gone through the editing process however some may not. We therefore suggest that you be aware of this before ordering this book. If in doubt check either the author or publisher’s details as we are unable to accept any returns unless they are faulty. Please contact us if you have any questions.

"Brooklyn Motto is a stylish, propulsive mystery that beautifully captures late 90s New York City in the convulsions of enormous social and economic change. Alex Johnson combines novelistic texture with cinematic pace to great effect, and narrator Nico Kelly is the perfect guide to this world full of danger, corruption, and also hope." - Sam Lipsyte, author of No One Left to Come Looking for You

"Alex R. Johnson's playful, witty, brooding, and heartfelt Brooklyn Motto is everything readers of classic private detective fiction could want - but placed in the nothing-like-classic East Village and Brooklyn of 1998. Brimming with distinctive characters, clever language, and crisp observations, the book is a thoroughly engaging and deeply satisfying read. I tore through it and had a lot of fun." - Evan Handler, actor; author of Time On Fire: A Comedy of Terrors and It's Only Temporary: The Good News and the Bad News of Being Alive

"[Brooklyn Motto] is an inventive hard-boiled mash-up starring a reluctant GenX PI who accidentally finds himself in way over his head. His backstory and future relies on a complicated extended family and their immigrant Brooklyn culture. A love letter to NYC & detective fiction." - John Doe (X), musician, actor and author of Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk and More Fun in the New World: The Unmaking and Legacy of L.A. Punk

--

Fans of Richard Price, Charlie Huston, and Jonathan Lethem will love this coming-of-age New York-centric detective noir debut from esteemed filmmaker and screenwriter Alex R. Johnson.

New York City, 1998. New York is changing around Nico Kelly, and he can feel more coming.

A private investigator and self-proclaimed photographer, Nico is stuck in a loop of city contracts and self loathing. What little middle class there was is disappearing-long-standing factories are moving out and taking their reliable neighborhood jobs with them, and Mayor Rudy Giuliani's police force has the streets in a stranglehold.

Nico spends his days looking for fraudsters while taking photos of municipal employees on disability claims. He spends his nights trying to get rid of the nagging feeling that his day job makes him a professional snitch-traversing dive bars, playing pinball, and fighting through the haze of hungover mornings and blurry evenings.

Pushing thirty years old and feeling split between his American and Latin heritage, between youth and adulthood, Nico finds himself at a precipice-who is he and what should he become?

When Nico witnesses and records a murder during one of his insurance fraud investigations, bodies start to turn up all around him and he's forced into solving a mystery he didn't ask to solve. Humorous, gritty, and real, Nico's search for what it means to be human takes him through the deepest and darkest parts of New York City.

Read More
Format
Paperback
Publisher
Hfi
Date
11 March 2025
Pages
276
ISBN
9798218524012