GRUBER, Michael 1940–

PERSONAL: Born 1940, in NY; married. Education: Attended City College of New York; Columbia University, B.A.; University of Miami, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES: Home—Seattle, WA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Morrow, 10 East 53rd Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10022.

CAREER: Writer. Worked as a marine biologist, and cook; policy speechwriter, c. 1970s.

WRITINGS:

Tropic of Night (novel), HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2003.

Valley of Bones (novel), William Morrow (New York, NY), 2005.

The Witch's Boy (young-adult novel), HarperTempest (New York, NY), 2005.

Jaguar (novel), Morrow (New York, NY), 2006.

Uncredited author of "Butch Karp" series by Robert K. Tanenbaum.

SIDELIGHTS: Michael Gruber worked as a ghostwriter for many of the popular "Butch Karp" legal-thriller novels before publishing his first novel under his own name. Tropic of Night is a critically acclaimed thriller featuring white anthropologist, Jane Doe, who nearly dies while studying shamanistic rituals in Nigeria. In the meantime, her husband, DeWitt Moore—a black writer who was also involved in the mysterious rites—essentially leaves his wife and disappears. Back in the United States, a series of bizarre murders, including Jane's sister, takes place. Doe recognizes the murders' ritualistic aspects and suspects her husband as the culprit. She teams up with Jimmy Paz, a black Cuban detective on the Miami police force who has experienced racial tensions because of his color. In an interview for Bookreporter.com, Gruber, a Caucasian, explained that he gained insight into his black characters "By invention, imagination and sympathy, the same way male authors can invent real female characters and female writers can invent real male ones." Noting that "the point of the book is that race is an hallucination," Gruber later added: "Not being allowed to show a fully developed brilliant black villain would really be racist."

In a review of Tropic of Night in the Washington Post, Patrick Andersen called the novel "an astonishing piece of fiction, one that expands the boundaries of the thriller genre." Anderson also commented, "The author wields his own sorcery as he lures us into the hallucinatory world of his imagination." USA Today contributor Marc Flores liked Gruber's characterization of Doe and his use of "multiple viewpoints such as Doe's first-person narration, her journal passages and Paz's investigation in third-person narration to skillfully advance a genre-hopping plot." A Kirkus Reviews contributor wrote that, "What would be overripe overplotting in lesser hands becomes wonderfully credible here, with cleverly drawn characters … trunkloads of ethno-botanical factoids, and interspersed sections from Jane's African logbook." Brad Hooper, writing in Booklist, noted that Tropic of Night "has movie potential written all over it, which is no criticism of its depth—simply a compliment to its strong and colorful story line."

In Valley of Bones Gruber brings back detective Paz to investigate the death of a foreign man who falls out of a hotel-room window and is impaled on an iron fence below. At the crime scene Paz discovers Emmylou Dideroff conversing through prayer with St. Catherine of Siena. Paz recruits psychologist Lorna Wise to help him investigate Dideroff's state of mind, and the two begin a love affair as they try to unravel the case. It is soon revealed that Dideroff is a member of the Catholic order known as the Society of Nursing Sisters of the Blood of the Christ. The evidence points to Dideroff as the murderer, but Paz thinks otherwise and sets out to track down the real killer.

Janet Maslin, writing in the New York Times, called Valley of Bones a "furiously overloaded story" and went on to suggest that the novel "is truly six different books rolled into one." Nonetheless, Maslin added, "That would amount to exasperating excess without Mr. Gruber's sharp, vivid flashes of the powerfully bizarre." A Publishers Weekly contributor commented that the novel "more than fulfills the promise of his dazzling Tropic of Night." The reviewer went on to write that "evocative prose, an erudite author, spellbinding subject matter and totally original characters add up to make this one a knockout." Frank Sennett, writing in Booklist, noted that Gruber "dishes up another meaty supernatural thriller."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Book, March-April, 2003, review of Tropic of Night, p. 31.

Booklist, January 1, 2003, Brad Hooper, review of Tropic of Night, p. 807; December 1, 2004, Frank Sennett, review of Valley of Bones, p. 639.

Entertainment Weekly, January 21, 2005, Abby West, review of Valley of Bones, p. 93.

Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2003, review of Tropic of Night, p. 12; October 1, 2004, review of Valley of Bones, p. 931.

Library Journal, January 1, 2005, Ken Bolton, review of Valley of Bones, p. 85.

MBR Bookwatch, January, 2005, Harriet Klausner, review of Valley of Bones.

New York Times, December 23, 2004, Janet Maslin, review of Valley of Bones, p. E12.

Publishers Weekly, March 11, 2002, John F. Baker, "'Scariest' Thriller for Morrow," p. 12; January 27, 2003, review of Tropic of Night, p. 233; November 8, 2004, review of Valley of Bones, p. 33; December 13, 2004, Lynn Andriani, "Hook, Line and Sinker: Michael Gruber Lures Readers in with Thrills Then Inspires Them to Contemplate Race, Faith, and the Environment," p. 39.

St. Petersburg Times, March 16, 2003, Susan Fernandez, review of Tropic of Night.

Sun-Sentinel (Ft. Lauderdale, FL), March 28, 2003, Oline H. Cogdill, review of Tropic of Night; February 2, 2005, Oline H. Cogdill, review of Valley of Bones.

USA Today, February 24, 2003, Marc Flores, review of Tropic of Night.

Washington Post, March 24, 2003, Patrick Anderson, review of Tropic of Night, p. C4; December 27, 2004, Patrick Anderson, review of Valley of Bones, p. C4.

ONLINE

Bookreporter.com, http://www.bookreporter.com/ (April, 2003), interview with Gruber.

Miami Herald Online, http://www.macon.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainment/ (January 16, 2005), Betsy Willeford, review of Valley of Bones.

MostlyFiction.com, http://mostlyfiction.com/ (February 17, 2005) Mary Whipple, review of Valley of Bones.