Helpful Score: 4
One of my top ten mysteries read in 2005. A mystery told from the perspective of Romulus Ledbetter, a supposed "crazy" street bum who lives in a cave in a park in New York. When a body is dumped in the park near his cave he takes it personally, and through the veil of his paranoia manages to begin investigating the death, which the police have written off as 'death by exposure.' Powerful and profound, a brief glimpse into the mind of a once-brilliant musician beset by some sort of short-circuit in his thought processes. Fascinating and highly recommended.
Helpful Score: 1
Once a devoted family man and Julliard-trained musician with a brilliant future, Rom now makes his home in a cave in NYC's Inwood park, spending his days foraging for food and waging a one-man war against Cornelius Gould Stuyvesant, the evil (and imaginary) powerbroker responsible for every one of society's ills. Then, one wintery night, Rom finds a corpse at the mouth of his cave. Propelled by his well-defined sense of ethics, he sets off on an obsessive quest for answers, following a spiraling web of clues and hunches, straight into the sinister den of temptation, murder, and money...a place otherwise known as the 'civilized world'
