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Gladyss of the Hunt
Grizzled homicide detective Bernie “Burnout” Farrell heads the hunt for a serial killer who is murdering call girls around Times Square. Hoping to set up a stakeout, Farrell recruits tall, blonde, ambitious rookie cop Gladyss Chronou for the investigation. But Gladyss believes her mystical yoga practice can give her an intuitive edge in solving the crimes and sees mythological patterns in the suspects and events they’re investigating. Bernie thinks she’s nuts, but then, he's a little too grounded. In fact, he's on a steady downward his wife is divorcing him, his longtime partner just died of AIDS, and he's developed a nagging cough since working down at Ground Zero.
Gladyss of the Hunt oscillates between chilly street realism and new age mysticism. As their investigation takes Bernie and Gladyss from arty society gatherings to shabby hotels and SROs, the narrative offers a suspenseful, often wittily satirical account of a city that is flashy and glamorous one moment, dark and violent the next.
Gladyss of the Hunt oscillates between chilly street realism and new age mysticism. As their investigation takes Bernie and Gladyss from arty society gatherings to shabby hotels and SROs, the narrative offers a suspenseful, often wittily satirical account of a city that is flashy and glamorous one moment, dark and violent the next.
288 pages, Paperback
First published October 8, 2013
10 people are currently reading
117 people want to read
About the author
Arthur Nersesian
35 books382 followersArthur Nersesian is the author of eight novels, including The Fuck-Up (Akashic, 1997 & MTV Books/Simon & Schuster, 1999), Chinese Takeout (HarperCollins), Manhattan Loverboy (Akashic), Suicide Casanova (Akashic), dogrun (MTV Books/Simon & Schuster), and Unlubricated (HarperCollins). He is also the author of East Village Tetralogy, a collection of four plays. He lives in New York City.
From arthurnersesian.com:
www.arthurnersesian.com/
"Arthur Nersesian is a real New York writer. His novels are a celebration
of marginal characters living in the East Village and trying to survive.
Nersesian's books include The Fuck-Up, The East Village Tetralogy, and now just published by a small press based in New York, Manhattan Loverboy. Nersesian has been a fixture in the writing scene for many years. He was an editor for The Portable Lower East Side, which was an important magazine during the 1980s and early 90s.
When The Fuck-Up came out in 1997, MTV Books picked it up and reprinted it in a new edition for hipsters everywhere. Soon Nersesian was no longer known only to a cabal of young bohemians on Avenue A. His work has been championed by The Village Voice and Time Out."
From arthurnersesian.com:
www.arthurnersesian.com/
"Arthur Nersesian is a real New York writer. His novels are a celebration
of marginal characters living in the East Village and trying to survive.
Nersesian's books include The Fuck-Up, The East Village Tetralogy, and now just published by a small press based in New York, Manhattan Loverboy. Nersesian has been a fixture in the writing scene for many years. He was an editor for The Portable Lower East Side, which was an important magazine during the 1980s and early 90s.
When The Fuck-Up came out in 1997, MTV Books picked it up and reprinted it in a new edition for hipsters everywhere. Soon Nersesian was no longer known only to a cabal of young bohemians on Avenue A. His work has been championed by The Village Voice and Time Out."
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
February 22, 2015
Nersesian doesn't put pout nearly enough books, I was really looking forward to this one, his foray into crime writing. And it was well worth the wait. Like in many New York authors' works, there is a love affair with the city here. The kind of love that sees all the ugliness and filth underneath and loves still. The real kind. In the post 9/11 city a rookie detective gets suddenly thrust into a serial killer investigation and subsequently mixed up in several different unfamiliar worlds, one of homicide and one of celebrity via a potential suspect/potential love interest. While the murders are dark and disturbing, Nersesian brings just the right amount of lightness and irreverent humor and quirkiness to balance the scales for a highly entertaining read. The real beauty is in the way he conveys a sense of a changing city, evolving or devolving (depending on perspective) metropolis where honest hideousness is giving way to glitzy ritzy newfound freshly built glamour, sort of like a cheap whore upscaling herself to an escort with a face lift and a boob job. If you're after a mystery thriller, Nersesian does a good job with it, including some fun plot twists right down to the end. I got the killer wrong, which was a nice surprise. If you're after a literary novel, this works as well since Nersesian is such a good writer, his books are a pleasure to read, not to mention so much fun, and I was just in the right mood for this one. Excellent read. Highly recommended.
January 23, 2019
This is the first time I've given a favorite author a goose egg.
There's a flair, an art, and even a bit of poetry to being a pastry chef. No pretense is made to fashion more "substantial" fare. New York writer Arthur Nersesian is one of the more talented practitioners around of the light and airy literary souffle, and I have loved him for that. His tasty confections melt in your mouth, and if there are additional notes going down the throat, then all the better. His sweetness always comes with a little extra gravitas. But here, Nersesian goes for the stolid old main course of Beef Wellington, and I felt less nourished than if he'd just served up cotton candy.
Nersesian's usual shtick is young urban professionals -- usually underemployed and predictably snarky -- eking out a living in the Big Apple while stumbling out of and into love. He's very good at this and I consider him among my favorite contemporary authors. He's not a breathless literary heavyweight, but when he's at his best his books are charming, funny and very smart. When Nersesian writes about New York City, you feel like you're right there on the pavement. And in this book, New York is again vibrant, and its denizens cognizant of the town's uniqueness.
In the case of Gladyss of the Hunt, our urban professional is the eponymous 23-year-old heroine with the extra "s" to her name; a tall, blonde, attractive rookie cop, who also is improbably a virgin. The story takes place after 911 and on the eve of the Iraq War. Gladyss has been assigned her first homicide case under the tutelage of bedraggled veteran detective Bernie Farrell, a curmudgeonly abusive cop with a heart of gold who loves the nasty old New York of 30 years ago and is nursing a bum leg gained from hazardous duty at the WTC on 911 and unsuccessfully holding the lid on his inner demons.
This unlikely buddy cop duo explores the nooks and crannies of New York tracking down dead-end leads while trying to stop a serial killer (or killers) who seem fixated on Marilyn Monroe or girls who resemble her. The playground for these developments is an ever-changing New York City, old hotels and new sleeker ones, slums and gentrifying blocks, where Gladyss and Bernie seem to represent different eras and attitudes, and where the killer seems to roam with uncanny ease. Gladyss begins to believe the killings might be linked to Greek mythological visions she has had while in a yoga-induced trance; visions which seem to suggest she may be Diana the Huntress. Clues found along the way seem to corroborate her metaphysical insights.
Along the way, Nersesian introduces us to his typical unlikely cast of characters: jaded NYC cops, movie stars and hangers-on, a ditzy actress starfucker friend, and sketchy low-life people from Bernie's past who seem like living ghosts and who harbor deep and disturbing secrets. Potentially guilty parties include a Jude Law-like movie stud, a director whose name sounds suspiciously like Quentin Tarantino, an old killer nemesis of Bernie's, Gladyss' would-be lover cop friend, O'Ryan, and several fringe denizens. Hitchcock-like McGuffins are thrown in to create false leads and twists. And, with all the chaos going on, Gladyss seems hellbent on losing her virginity.
For most readers, all of this might sound pretty good, and from the reviews I've read on here, the majority seems pleased with the results. But to state a strong bias up front, I have no interest in police procedurals, and this is Nersesian doing a police procedural, and I found it labored.
Within the straitjacket of the genre conventions of the police procedural, Nersesian strains to afford his characters and situations his usual deftness of touch, and he just doesn't succeed. Nersesian is best taken when he lets his characters run wild in loose, free-form plots driven by silly deus ex machina and running gags. That bag of tricks is emptied but smothered in the story, and the humor is neutered by the imperatives of the plot.
Most readers, I think, require more plot than I do, and maybe Nersesian, knowing the mass preference for formula plotting, is giving it to them, in the form of a popular and reliable crime-fiction genre. Maybe Nersesian wanted to make a little more money this time instead of being pegged as a New York cult writer with a limited coterie of devotees. It's possibly a good move for him, especially if the book gets optioned as a series or a screenplay. Gladyss seems consciously devised as a vehicle for Charlize Theron or a similar blonde beauty of tall stature. But, for me, this book is a step backward in terms of accomplishment.
Nevertheless, Nersesian does have legitimate, and even poignant things to say about the homogenization of culture, the Disneyfication of not just New York but all places that cling tenuously to the things that make them unique.
It seems to me that Nersesian worked harder on this than any of his other books. I wish he hadn't worked so hard. If Nersesian does more genre books, I'll likely avoid them.
(KevinR@Ky 2016)
Nersesian so far (the first four on this list are easily recommendable):
**** The Fuck-Up
**** Chinese Takeout
**** Dogrun
*** (3.5) Suicide Casanova
*** Manhattan Loverboy
* Gladyss of the Hunt
There's a flair, an art, and even a bit of poetry to being a pastry chef. No pretense is made to fashion more "substantial" fare. New York writer Arthur Nersesian is one of the more talented practitioners around of the light and airy literary souffle, and I have loved him for that. His tasty confections melt in your mouth, and if there are additional notes going down the throat, then all the better. His sweetness always comes with a little extra gravitas. But here, Nersesian goes for the stolid old main course of Beef Wellington, and I felt less nourished than if he'd just served up cotton candy.
Nersesian's usual shtick is young urban professionals -- usually underemployed and predictably snarky -- eking out a living in the Big Apple while stumbling out of and into love. He's very good at this and I consider him among my favorite contemporary authors. He's not a breathless literary heavyweight, but when he's at his best his books are charming, funny and very smart. When Nersesian writes about New York City, you feel like you're right there on the pavement. And in this book, New York is again vibrant, and its denizens cognizant of the town's uniqueness.
In the case of Gladyss of the Hunt, our urban professional is the eponymous 23-year-old heroine with the extra "s" to her name; a tall, blonde, attractive rookie cop, who also is improbably a virgin. The story takes place after 911 and on the eve of the Iraq War. Gladyss has been assigned her first homicide case under the tutelage of bedraggled veteran detective Bernie Farrell, a curmudgeonly abusive cop with a heart of gold who loves the nasty old New York of 30 years ago and is nursing a bum leg gained from hazardous duty at the WTC on 911 and unsuccessfully holding the lid on his inner demons.
This unlikely buddy cop duo explores the nooks and crannies of New York tracking down dead-end leads while trying to stop a serial killer (or killers) who seem fixated on Marilyn Monroe or girls who resemble her. The playground for these developments is an ever-changing New York City, old hotels and new sleeker ones, slums and gentrifying blocks, where Gladyss and Bernie seem to represent different eras and attitudes, and where the killer seems to roam with uncanny ease. Gladyss begins to believe the killings might be linked to Greek mythological visions she has had while in a yoga-induced trance; visions which seem to suggest she may be Diana the Huntress. Clues found along the way seem to corroborate her metaphysical insights.
Along the way, Nersesian introduces us to his typical unlikely cast of characters: jaded NYC cops, movie stars and hangers-on, a ditzy actress starfucker friend, and sketchy low-life people from Bernie's past who seem like living ghosts and who harbor deep and disturbing secrets. Potentially guilty parties include a Jude Law-like movie stud, a director whose name sounds suspiciously like Quentin Tarantino, an old killer nemesis of Bernie's, Gladyss' would-be lover cop friend, O'Ryan, and several fringe denizens. Hitchcock-like McGuffins are thrown in to create false leads and twists. And, with all the chaos going on, Gladyss seems hellbent on losing her virginity.
For most readers, all of this might sound pretty good, and from the reviews I've read on here, the majority seems pleased with the results. But to state a strong bias up front, I have no interest in police procedurals, and this is Nersesian doing a police procedural, and I found it labored.
Within the straitjacket of the genre conventions of the police procedural, Nersesian strains to afford his characters and situations his usual deftness of touch, and he just doesn't succeed. Nersesian is best taken when he lets his characters run wild in loose, free-form plots driven by silly deus ex machina and running gags. That bag of tricks is emptied but smothered in the story, and the humor is neutered by the imperatives of the plot.
Most readers, I think, require more plot than I do, and maybe Nersesian, knowing the mass preference for formula plotting, is giving it to them, in the form of a popular and reliable crime-fiction genre. Maybe Nersesian wanted to make a little more money this time instead of being pegged as a New York cult writer with a limited coterie of devotees. It's possibly a good move for him, especially if the book gets optioned as a series or a screenplay. Gladyss seems consciously devised as a vehicle for Charlize Theron or a similar blonde beauty of tall stature. But, for me, this book is a step backward in terms of accomplishment.
Nevertheless, Nersesian does have legitimate, and even poignant things to say about the homogenization of culture, the Disneyfication of not just New York but all places that cling tenuously to the things that make them unique.
It seems to me that Nersesian worked harder on this than any of his other books. I wish he hadn't worked so hard. If Nersesian does more genre books, I'll likely avoid them.
(KevinR@Ky 2016)
Nersesian so far (the first four on this list are easily recommendable):
**** The Fuck-Up
**** Chinese Takeout
**** Dogrun
*** (3.5) Suicide Casanova
*** Manhattan Loverboy
* Gladyss of the Hunt
June 8, 2014
It's been a while since I read an Arthur Nersesian book and within the first chapter I was glad I picked this up. Nersesian has a canny way of creating the female voice and he does not disappoint in this. Loved the twists and turns of the plot and as usual all the New York City references makes it an adventurous read. Highly recommend it!
March 16, 2015
Gladyss of the Hunt was a highly enjoyable read; as murder mysteries go, it was quirky—and I admit I suspended disbelief, as I often do, in order to get through it.
Nersesian engages the reader by becoming the female protagonist; in this case, she has a fraternal twin brother. The first-person narrative is catchy and likable.
Another reviewer of another of Arthur's books complained he "isn't prolific enough." I wish that was the worst thing I could say about most authors!
Nersesian engages the reader by becoming the female protagonist; in this case, she has a fraternal twin brother. The first-person narrative is catchy and likable.
Another reviewer of another of Arthur's books complained he "isn't prolific enough." I wish that was the worst thing I could say about most authors!
July 2, 2015
Overall, it's a quick and fun read that intermingles ancient myth with pulp mystery. However, while the characteristics of the protagonist, Gladyss, are interesting, she isn't drawn deeply enough. She reads like a means to an end, free of the clever links that join the rest of the novel.
May 2, 2021
Newly minted copy Gladyss Chronou is assigned to homicide and teams up with Bernie "Burnout" Farrell to catch a serial killer. The streets and hotels and SROs are so grimly realistic, I could see and smell them in my mind. The blurb reads, "the narrative offers a suspenseful, often wittily satirical account of a city that is flashy and glamorous one moment, dark and violent the next." Really catches the flavor, and you can see too Nersesian's eye on development and gentrification that will lead to the Five Books of (Jacob) Moses, which I can't wait to read.
April 13, 2025
It's been almost 20 years since I last read a Nersesian book. I seem to remember enjoying the city as one of the main characters, and while that's true in this book as well, the rest of the characters are so inexplicable and unrealistic. I'm not sure if my sensibilities have changed or the guy just doesn't know how to write a procedural but this was as vapid as the characters it was lampooning.
July 15, 2019
lot's of fun... and a story from the days of yore in NYC
April 6, 2016
I am biased, I admit it, I love Nersesian's work so much, every book I devour immediately upon purchase. Gladyss of the Hunt, however, I was afraid to read because it's obviously a crime thriller and those types of books scare me- gory murder details and mysterious unknown killers, et al, keeping me up at night. This book kept me up all right but for more reasons than one. Nersesian has taken the gore and mystery and wrapped them all up nicely with his wry humour, glamorous yet gritty backdrop of NYC, and a compellingly real and self-questioning protagonist we all fall in love with. Noticeably, this book's style is slightly less self-deprecating than the others, maybe he's come to terms with himself a bit more? Whatever it is, I want more, please Arthur, write more.
May 23, 2014
Nersesian, as always, keeps his voice in tact. An unconvincing female, especially in her early 20s, Nersesian successfully tells a fun story of murder and mayhem with his gritty exposition and deep love of the dirty, the pervy, and New York. I would recommend Gladyss Of The Hunt not to Nersesian fans, but to readers who are looking for an easy, clever thriller. Nersesian's second mystery/crime novel is more fun than his last and less deep than his previous novels but still worth a read and high rating.
June 22, 2014
The best thing about this crime story were the quirkiness of the characters, including protagonist Police Officer Chronou, a rookie cop who is both a virgin and, at the same time, swept up in a glamorous romance with a movie star. The second best thing about the book was the setting: the gritty, pre-Giuliana/Bloomberg days of NYC. Those elements alone made the book a fast, fun read. The murder mystery (involving serial killings) was a bit less compelling but it still held my attention.
August 24, 2014
As always, Arthur Nersesian does a solid job crafting an interesting narrative. New York is always his unspoken lead character, and the time period described was so spot-on, realistic and a good commentary on gentrification overall that it fit right into the murder-mystery plot.
Really enjoyable, but there was a little bit of a letdown in the resolution and aftermath that I couldn't quite get over. Left a little bit of a bad aftertaste.
Really enjoyable, but there was a little bit of a letdown in the resolution and aftermath that I couldn't quite get over. Left a little bit of a bad aftertaste.
December 16, 2015
A pretty rookie cop gets to work with an old jaded detective in an investigation of a serial killer. The ensuing events are remarkable, although some of the denouement felt off. Still, this was a very good mystery with interesting characters. Well written, Mr. Nersessian is excellent at providing a feel for New York City and its characters. I enjoy Mr. Nersessian's work very much.
June 12, 2014
Good read for sure. I just wanted more. You know, like how his books usually spiral down into chaos at the end. Like I feel like there could have been one more chapter where everything just went to hell. Maybe it's just me.
October 8, 2014
This was really not very good. I liked Nersesian's early works, like The Fuck-Up and Chinese Takeout. Never got into this one. The character seemed very shallow as did her whole little world in New York City post 9/11.
October 23, 2015
This book even had a good ending! But that would be a super spoiler. Believable characters, authentically-rendered New York, snappy pace and chilling serial killer plot. The cold New York wind almost took on character status.
will-not-read
June 17, 2014I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12733425
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12733425
May 31, 2016
Cannot get enough of Arthur Nersesian. Have enjoyed all of his work.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews