Nova's 11th novel centers on two main characters, who are fated to cross paths three times: Frank Kohler, a damaged and increasingly violent loner who sends for a mail-order bride from Russia, and Russell Boyd, a state trooper in love with a special-ed teacher.
Critic Reviews
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Outstanding
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Entertainment Weekly Ben Spier
Nova displays an uncanny flair for evoking his characters' innermost fears and desires through sensuous details.
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Outstanding
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Los Angeles Times Tom Nolan
With a poet's sensitivity, Nova renders nuances of mood, complexities of character. "Cruisers" is like a poem, at once hard-boiled and lyrical -- a poem of and for our time. [19 Sep 2004]
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Favorable
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Publishers Weekly
Nova again demonstrates his control of character, sense of place and ability to create grim worlds that readers might be reluctant to experience at first, but then find hard to resist. [5 Jul 2004, p.39]
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Favorable
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Booklist Donna Seaman
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. [1 June 2004, p.1704]
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Favorable
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Boston Globe Eliza R. L. McGraw
The pacing of "Cruisers" is compulsive and relentless.
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Favorable
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Chicago Tribune Alan Cheuse
Though "Cruisers" is not his broadest canvas, he does make up in intensity, especially in the scenes of naked violence, what he gives up in breadth.
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Favorable
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Washington Post Peter Straub
Subtle, understated and humane... Cruisers demonstrates that the boundary between literature and genre fiction, once fiercely maintained, has grown tissue-thin.
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Mixed
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Kirkus Reviews
Like a depressing tale of crime and woe from the evening news but shorn of tabloid extravagance--and with an uncommonly human sensibility. [15 May 2004, p.465]
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Mixed
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San Francisco Chronicle Brenn Jones
If the novel falls short on characterization, it doesn't lack for forceful storytelling.
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Unfavorable
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The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Lee Henderson
The layers of sympathy cast upon the players finally make the novel blandly palatable. I see no point to reading a murder contrived to save us from mortal anxiety.
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