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Shoot the Moonlight Out
A haunting crime story about the broken characters inhabiting yesterday's Brooklyn, this is the new novel from modern master of neo-noir William Boyle.
An explosive crime drama, Shoot the Moonlight Out evokes a mystical Brooklyn where the sidewalks are cracked, where Virgin Mary statues tilt in fenced front yards, and where smudges of moonlight reflect in puddles even on the blackest nights.
Southern Brooklyn, July 1996. Fire hydrants are open and spraying water on the sizzling blacktop. Punk kids have to make their own fun. Bobby Santovasco and his pal Zeke like to throw rocks at cars getting off the Belt Parkway. They think it’s dumb and harmless until it’s too late to think otherwise. Then there’s Jack Cornacchia, a widower who lives with his high school age daughter Amelia and reads meters for Con Ed but also has a secret life as a vigilante, righting neighborhood wrongs through acts of violence. A simple mission to strong-arm a Bay Ridge con man, Max Berry, leads him to cross paths with a tragedy that hits close to home.
Fast forward five June 2001. The summer before New York City and the world changed for good. Charlie French is a low-level gangster-wannabe trying to make a name for himself. When he stumbles onto a bowling alley locker stuffed with a bag full of cash, he brings it to his only pal, Max Berry, for safekeeping while he cleans up the mess surrounding it. Bobby Santovasco—with no real future mapped out and the big sin of his past shining brightly in his rearview mirror—has taken a job working as an errand boy for Max Berry. On a recruiting run for Max’s Ponzi scheme, Bobby meets Francesca Clarke, born in the neighborhood but an outsider nonetheless. They hit it off. Bobby gets the idea to knock off Max’s safe so he and Francesca can escape Brooklyn forever. Little does he know what Charlie French has stashed there.
Meanwhile, Bobby’s former stepsister, Lily Murphy, is back home in the neighborhood after college, teaching a writing class in the basement of St. Mary's church. She's also being stalked by her college boyfriend. One of her students is Jack Cornacchia. When she opens up to him about her stalker, Jack decides to take matters into his own hands.
A riveting portrait of lives crashing together at the turn of the century , Shoot the Moonlight Out is tragic and tender and funny and strange. A sense of loss is palpable—what has been lost and what will be lost—and Boyle’s characters face down old ghosts with grim determination, as ripples of consequence radiate in dangerous directions.
An explosive crime drama, Shoot the Moonlight Out evokes a mystical Brooklyn where the sidewalks are cracked, where Virgin Mary statues tilt in fenced front yards, and where smudges of moonlight reflect in puddles even on the blackest nights.
Southern Brooklyn, July 1996. Fire hydrants are open and spraying water on the sizzling blacktop. Punk kids have to make their own fun. Bobby Santovasco and his pal Zeke like to throw rocks at cars getting off the Belt Parkway. They think it’s dumb and harmless until it’s too late to think otherwise. Then there’s Jack Cornacchia, a widower who lives with his high school age daughter Amelia and reads meters for Con Ed but also has a secret life as a vigilante, righting neighborhood wrongs through acts of violence. A simple mission to strong-arm a Bay Ridge con man, Max Berry, leads him to cross paths with a tragedy that hits close to home.
Fast forward five June 2001. The summer before New York City and the world changed for good. Charlie French is a low-level gangster-wannabe trying to make a name for himself. When he stumbles onto a bowling alley locker stuffed with a bag full of cash, he brings it to his only pal, Max Berry, for safekeeping while he cleans up the mess surrounding it. Bobby Santovasco—with no real future mapped out and the big sin of his past shining brightly in his rearview mirror—has taken a job working as an errand boy for Max Berry. On a recruiting run for Max’s Ponzi scheme, Bobby meets Francesca Clarke, born in the neighborhood but an outsider nonetheless. They hit it off. Bobby gets the idea to knock off Max’s safe so he and Francesca can escape Brooklyn forever. Little does he know what Charlie French has stashed there.
Meanwhile, Bobby’s former stepsister, Lily Murphy, is back home in the neighborhood after college, teaching a writing class in the basement of St. Mary's church. She's also being stalked by her college boyfriend. One of her students is Jack Cornacchia. When she opens up to him about her stalker, Jack decides to take matters into his own hands.
A riveting portrait of lives crashing together at the turn of the century , Shoot the Moonlight Out is tragic and tender and funny and strange. A sense of loss is palpable—what has been lost and what will be lost—and Boyle’s characters face down old ghosts with grim determination, as ripples of consequence radiate in dangerous directions.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2021
36 people are currently reading
947 people want to read
About the author
William Boyle
42 books430 followersWilliam Boyle is the author of eight books set in and around the southern Brooklyn neighborhood of Gravesend, where he was born and raised. His most recent novel is SAINT OF THE NARROWS STREET, available in February 2025 from Soho Crime in the US and March 2025 from No Exit in the UK. His books have been nominated for the Hammett Prize, the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Award in the UK, and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière in France, and they have been included on best-of lists in Washington Post, CrimeReads, and more. He currently lives in Oxford, Mississippi.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 111 reviews
February 10, 2022
3.5 rounded up.
In 1996 teens Bobby (Santovasco) and Zeke are egging each other on to throw objects into traffic and they grow increasingly foolish with their choice of things to throw, with fatal consequences. Then there’s Jack Cornacchia a kind of do good vigilante fixer who connects to the tragedy, who meets Lily, his teacher at a writing class in 2001 and is a stepsister to Bobby. Bobby now works for Max Berry whose investment firm operates like a Ponzi scheme, who has gang connections through Charlie French. This is a character driven novel of how lives connect, crash and burn and about the unpredictable path that life takes. Does fate bring them all together?
Initially, I feel unsure I’m going to like the novel as at the start introducing the characters its long-winded and somewhat tortuous and then something clicks and I find myself enjoying it. Maybe it’s the excellent atmosphere the author creates in this crumbling decaying part of Brooklyn which perfectly matches some of the characters. You especially feel it in Jack’s house with very vivid description so it springs to life before your eyes. As the complex plot develops parts are violent and shocking but not entirely unexpected given the nature of some of the characters. It’s very emotional at times with loss and grief portrayed so you feel it yourself. You want to yell at some characters for their extreme stupidity and greed and it’s inevitable chilling consequences. Jack and Lily are the standout characters for me and I specially enjoy reading their perspectives with Mairead injecting some much-needed humour! The characters connect together well (maybe it’s a little contrived but hey it’s fiction!) and the consequences of past actions are meted out and with a good ending, with permission to feel okay.
This is my first read of this author and I would read his books again as he has made me intrigued.
With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Oldcastle Books, No Exit Press for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.
In 1996 teens Bobby (Santovasco) and Zeke are egging each other on to throw objects into traffic and they grow increasingly foolish with their choice of things to throw, with fatal consequences. Then there’s Jack Cornacchia a kind of do good vigilante fixer who connects to the tragedy, who meets Lily, his teacher at a writing class in 2001 and is a stepsister to Bobby. Bobby now works for Max Berry whose investment firm operates like a Ponzi scheme, who has gang connections through Charlie French. This is a character driven novel of how lives connect, crash and burn and about the unpredictable path that life takes. Does fate bring them all together?
Initially, I feel unsure I’m going to like the novel as at the start introducing the characters its long-winded and somewhat tortuous and then something clicks and I find myself enjoying it. Maybe it’s the excellent atmosphere the author creates in this crumbling decaying part of Brooklyn which perfectly matches some of the characters. You especially feel it in Jack’s house with very vivid description so it springs to life before your eyes. As the complex plot develops parts are violent and shocking but not entirely unexpected given the nature of some of the characters. It’s very emotional at times with loss and grief portrayed so you feel it yourself. You want to yell at some characters for their extreme stupidity and greed and it’s inevitable chilling consequences. Jack and Lily are the standout characters for me and I specially enjoy reading their perspectives with Mairead injecting some much-needed humour! The characters connect together well (maybe it’s a little contrived but hey it’s fiction!) and the consequences of past actions are meted out and with a good ending, with permission to feel okay.
This is my first read of this author and I would read his books again as he has made me intrigued.
With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Oldcastle Books, No Exit Press for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.
July 30, 2024
Boyle' novels plumb the depths of Brooklyn, filled with lost dreams, desperation, and decay. His latest, Shoot the Moonlight Out, is a crime novel that often doesn't feel like like a crime novel. That's because it's a complex mosaic of inter-connected characters stuck in their ruts rather than the classic bang bang shoot-em-up. The chapters shift from one character to another and, at first, you wonder why you are now learning about this guy or gal, but then you realize the connections before they do. Jack is a walking ball of tragedy who used to do favors for people off the books, confronting shady characters no one else would. He's lost his wife and daughter and lives in a decaying house where time stopped. Lily came back from college to live with her mother. She's got no job, no future, no plans, till she stumbles on the idea of teaching a writing class at her local parish. She's also being stalked by her crazy ex-boyfriend Micah. Bobby is a fourteen year old nobody who, with his buddy Zeke, runs around causing havoc. He never leaves home, never amounts to much. Francine dreams Of going to film school and meeting Matt Dillon. Max Berry is a forty-year-old milk-drinking junior Bernie Madoff always looking for the next victim to fleece. All of these broken characters cross paths and their sad sack stories mesh in ways they can't begin to comprehend. Like any classic crime novel, there is, of course, a big bag of cash that keeps changing hands. Moreover, no one here ever finds peace.
December 29, 2021
I won a free advance copy of this from the publisher in a Twitter contest.
Another year, another excellent novel from William Boyle.
It’s 1996 in Brooklyn, and a couple of teenage boys are just doing the kind of idiotic things that teenage boys do when they inadvertently cause a tragic accident. Cut to the summer of 2001, and that cloud hangs over one of the boys, Bobby, as well as Jack Cornacchia. Jack used to be a small time hit-man/enforcer, but he doesn’t do much of anything anymore until he takes a writing class being taught by Lilly who just graduated college. However, she's uncertain of what to do next, and she's being stalked by an ex-boyfriend. Meanwhile, Bobby has started working for a guy who runs a Ponzi scheme masquerading as an investment firm when he meets Francesca, a neighborhood girl who just finished high school and dreams of making movies. When crazy Charlie French runs across a bag of stolen money and drugs, he leaves it with Max for safe keeping while he tries to cut off any connections between him and the loot.
As people start meeting, things start happening, and while some of these relationships result in some heartwarming bonding, others turn bloody.
This is some of the best literary crime fiction you’ll find out there. Boyle has a knack for bringing these Brooklyn streets to life, and then he populates them with complex characters who are all in orbit around each other even if they don’t realize it. Everybody has a rich inner life, and whether it’s quiet but deadly Jack mourning a loss or Charlie visiting a prostitute to satisfy his own particular kink, it all feels real and authentic.
Small events and chance encounters can cause a string of unintended consequences, some good and some terrible. Through it all Boyle shows once again that if you have a bunch of people with their own baggage and ambitions, the results can make you care about them all.
I read a lot of great books in 2021, and this is one of the best of the bunch.
Another year, another excellent novel from William Boyle.
It’s 1996 in Brooklyn, and a couple of teenage boys are just doing the kind of idiotic things that teenage boys do when they inadvertently cause a tragic accident. Cut to the summer of 2001, and that cloud hangs over one of the boys, Bobby, as well as Jack Cornacchia. Jack used to be a small time hit-man/enforcer, but he doesn’t do much of anything anymore until he takes a writing class being taught by Lilly who just graduated college. However, she's uncertain of what to do next, and she's being stalked by an ex-boyfriend. Meanwhile, Bobby has started working for a guy who runs a Ponzi scheme masquerading as an investment firm when he meets Francesca, a neighborhood girl who just finished high school and dreams of making movies. When crazy Charlie French runs across a bag of stolen money and drugs, he leaves it with Max for safe keeping while he tries to cut off any connections between him and the loot.
As people start meeting, things start happening, and while some of these relationships result in some heartwarming bonding, others turn bloody.
This is some of the best literary crime fiction you’ll find out there. Boyle has a knack for bringing these Brooklyn streets to life, and then he populates them with complex characters who are all in orbit around each other even if they don’t realize it. Everybody has a rich inner life, and whether it’s quiet but deadly Jack mourning a loss or Charlie visiting a prostitute to satisfy his own particular kink, it all feels real and authentic.
Small events and chance encounters can cause a string of unintended consequences, some good and some terrible. Through it all Boyle shows once again that if you have a bunch of people with their own baggage and ambitions, the results can make you care about them all.
I read a lot of great books in 2021, and this is one of the best of the bunch.
December 28, 2021
Two boys who kill time throwing rocks at passing cars on the highway (King for the Day if you hit the driver through an open window!); a grieving widower who spends his free time invoking vigilante style justice on neighborhood wrongdoers; one terrible moment when these two worlds collide.
Five years later - a community creative writing course; a ponzi scheme; a bag of stolen money and drugs; a stalking situation. These seemingly unrelated things get woven together through an intricate spiderweb of a story set in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn that firmly plants William Boyle on my list as a must read author. If you haven’t picked one of his books up yet I ask ….
Five years later - a community creative writing course; a ponzi scheme; a bag of stolen money and drugs; a stalking situation. These seemingly unrelated things get woven together through an intricate spiderweb of a story set in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn that firmly plants William Boyle on my list as a must read author. If you haven’t picked one of his books up yet I ask ….
November 10, 2021
Safe to say that Boyle's established himself as the poet laureate of pre-9/11 NYC. Sprawling casts, a tremendous sense of place and time, and plot threads that, slowly and intricately, tie themselves up in a knot of a climax.
Like City of Margins, this one concerns a slew of Brooklynites on the fringes of existence; sad characters who don't demand pity but, perhaps ask for understanding? Add in a solid antagonist, and you've got a killer novel written in clean, to-the-point prose.
Boyle's become one of my favorites. Maybe one day his stories will cross over the river into the Bronx.
Like City of Margins, this one concerns a slew of Brooklynites on the fringes of existence; sad characters who don't demand pity but, perhaps ask for understanding? Add in a solid antagonist, and you've got a killer novel written in clean, to-the-point prose.
Boyle's become one of my favorites. Maybe one day his stories will cross over the river into the Bronx.
December 27, 2021
Brooklyn, summer 1996: Jack Cornacchia is a widower raising his teen daughter Amelia. He’s living a double life as a vigilante to correct wrongs in the neighborhood and save money for Amelia to live comfortably.
Young and dumb pals Bobby and Zeke waste their days throwing rocks at cars on the parkway… until they finally hit someone.
Brooklyn, summer 2001: Bobby’s an errand boy for wannabe gangster when he meets and falls for neighborhood girl Francesca. His love for her will lead him to make more dumb life-altering decisions. His former stepsister Lily is home from college and teaching a writing class in the church basement where she meets her student Jack Cornacchia. The two form a bond that leads to an unexpected reckoning when the ripples of past and present actions meet.
This is my first book from William Boyle and it will not be my last. The atmosphere of Brooklyn, the superb character development, and the stunning writing all make Boyle a reading priority for me. I highly recommend Shoot the Moonlight Out to fans of crime/noir.
For more reviews, visit: www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com
Young and dumb pals Bobby and Zeke waste their days throwing rocks at cars on the parkway… until they finally hit someone.
Brooklyn, summer 2001: Bobby’s an errand boy for wannabe gangster when he meets and falls for neighborhood girl Francesca. His love for her will lead him to make more dumb life-altering decisions. His former stepsister Lily is home from college and teaching a writing class in the church basement where she meets her student Jack Cornacchia. The two form a bond that leads to an unexpected reckoning when the ripples of past and present actions meet.
This is my first book from William Boyle and it will not be my last. The atmosphere of Brooklyn, the superb character development, and the stunning writing all make Boyle a reading priority for me. I highly recommend Shoot the Moonlight Out to fans of crime/noir.
For more reviews, visit: www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com
January 2, 2022
it is not a classic thriller. it is more a state or condition of marginal people who try to survive in a tough part of the world in this case Brooklyn. there are parts which are very nice and parts i was passing through. i am not sure the different style of fonts as inner thoughts is really working. so so.
March 21, 2022
In the summer of ’96 two teenage boys (Bobby and Zeke) decide to pass the time by throwing rocks onto the highway, bonus points if you hit a driver, but this idiotic game turns deadly when they finally hit a young woman. Fast forward five years and that dark cloud of shame is still hanging over Bobby as he works for a gangster. From here it’s a ball unravelling as we see the idiotic antics of the past catch up to them in the present through new relationships and old acquaintances, leading us up to an explosive ending.
This was my first book by the author and overall I thought it was okay, but I really did hate Bobby and Zeke. I understand teenagers (and adults to be fair..) do really stupid things, but what they did made them very unlikeable in my eyes, and after the events of ’96 I had no interest in reading anything more about them so I was only half invested in finishing the book. I know the book is about surviving in harsh places and times but for me it just fell very flat. If I don’t like a character then I’m not going to like the book. It might have been better to have moved the opening chapters to later in the book as I might have thought differently about the characters by that point, but to make me hate the main characters so early on really was a killer for this one.
Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for my honest review.
This was my first book by the author and overall I thought it was okay, but I really did hate Bobby and Zeke. I understand teenagers (and adults to be fair..) do really stupid things, but what they did made them very unlikeable in my eyes, and after the events of ’96 I had no interest in reading anything more about them so I was only half invested in finishing the book. I know the book is about surviving in harsh places and times but for me it just fell very flat. If I don’t like a character then I’m not going to like the book. It might have been better to have moved the opening chapters to later in the book as I might have thought differently about the characters by that point, but to make me hate the main characters so early on really was a killer for this one.
Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for my honest review.
March 14, 2022
A new author to me but not for much longer as this was truly excellent. A wide ranging thriller that was based in Brooklyn and filled with beautifully depicted characters who all took centre stage at times.
The action was breathless, gritty and sometimes violent and the sense of time and place beautifully depicted.
I devoured this and will be searching for his back catalogue. Highly recommended.
The action was breathless, gritty and sometimes violent and the sense of time and place beautifully depicted.
I devoured this and will be searching for his back catalogue. Highly recommended.
January 19, 2023
I've become quite a William Boyle fan. Call him noir-ish or gritty or whatever, he creates stories that are so engrossing I just get lost in them. "Shoot the Moonlight Out" certainly delivers in that way.
STMO is the tale of a few people, most of whom are good at heart, from a tough part of Brooklyn whose lives get entangled due to some criminality. It begins with the death of a promising young woman who was the victim of a dumbass kid throwing a rock at her car. Her grieving father who works out his rage by acting as a sort of community vigilante, finds himself in a writing class in the basement of a neighborhood church with a young college grad teacher. The teacher reminds him of his daughter so much that he befriends her and they become platonically close. Meanwhile, a local tough guy decides to hide a bag full of cash and dope with a buddy who's a sort of Dollar Store version of Madoff, screwing the locals with a Ponzi scheme that inevitably will go bust. The buddy's paid-under-the-counter helper, a dopey kid with baggage of his own and a troubled home life (a common theme here...), falls in love with a local bi-racial girl (who likewise has a troubled home life, highlighted by the omnipresence of the "grandmother from hell") and decides he'd like to steal the bag full o' money and drugs. Of course, none of this really works out for anyone and when the lives intersect and their connections become apparent to all, it makes for an interesting conclusion to say the least.
STMO isn't a big book with grand themes. It's really about people having tough times and trying to figure their way out of them. Boyle is a fine writer, an ace at producing realistic dialogue, and he does a wonderful job painting a picture of the insular Brooklyn environment his characters inhabit. In fact, the feeling I got as I was reading this novel was claustrophobic- everyone knows everyone or is at most one degree removed, almost all the action takes place in the neighborhood, and most of the characters really don't know any place other than their slice of Brooklyn. Boyle just portrays the milieu wonderfully. I really loved this sad, tough novel.
STMO is the tale of a few people, most of whom are good at heart, from a tough part of Brooklyn whose lives get entangled due to some criminality. It begins with the death of a promising young woman who was the victim of a dumbass kid throwing a rock at her car. Her grieving father who works out his rage by acting as a sort of community vigilante, finds himself in a writing class in the basement of a neighborhood church with a young college grad teacher. The teacher reminds him of his daughter so much that he befriends her and they become platonically close. Meanwhile, a local tough guy decides to hide a bag full of cash and dope with a buddy who's a sort of Dollar Store version of Madoff, screwing the locals with a Ponzi scheme that inevitably will go bust. The buddy's paid-under-the-counter helper, a dopey kid with baggage of his own and a troubled home life (a common theme here...), falls in love with a local bi-racial girl (who likewise has a troubled home life, highlighted by the omnipresence of the "grandmother from hell") and decides he'd like to steal the bag full o' money and drugs. Of course, none of this really works out for anyone and when the lives intersect and their connections become apparent to all, it makes for an interesting conclusion to say the least.
STMO isn't a big book with grand themes. It's really about people having tough times and trying to figure their way out of them. Boyle is a fine writer, an ace at producing realistic dialogue, and he does a wonderful job painting a picture of the insular Brooklyn environment his characters inhabit. In fact, the feeling I got as I was reading this novel was claustrophobic- everyone knows everyone or is at most one degree removed, almost all the action takes place in the neighborhood, and most of the characters really don't know any place other than their slice of Brooklyn. Boyle just portrays the milieu wonderfully. I really loved this sad, tough novel.
October 31, 2025
I can't believe I finished this execrable book. Cliched and insipid dialogue, weak characterization and a jerky plot tied together by coincidences that defy plausibility. The weird focus on smoking and the drinking of water doesn't help.
April 1, 2022
Shoot The Moonlight Out by William Boyle is a novel which makes you feel as though you're wandering the moonlit streets of Brooklyn on the shoulders of the characters, all troubled and found wanting in their own ways.
Set across the mid nineties and 2001, the book opens up with a teenage prank which has devastating consequences. With a five year gap in place in the very close-knit neighbourhood, you get a definite sense of sliding doors and wrong time, wrong place.
The fact that Boyle is born and raised in Brooklyn, every detail of the streets and community he depicts is really strong and assured.
There's poverty and crime and darkness in the neighbourhoods that Boyle's characters dominate. There are beautiful sentences like 'On the sidewalk, a woman with a shopping cart is collecting soda cans from the trash. It's late afternoon, the light in the neighbourhood gone pink and hazy.'
Jack, who's aggrieved and understandably somewhat bitter feels that 'Bad people often lived easier and better than good people. They endured, while good people dropped likes flies.'
Then there's Lily at a metaphorical crossroads in her young life, trying to work out which direction she wants to take. I love the lines, when she's returning to her childhood church to run creative writing sessions, where she notes 'St Mary's is where she's gone to church her whole life. Baptism, First Communion, Confirmation. Confessing her sins in a shadowy box that smelled of regret.' Just brilliant.
Without giving anything away, what you get as the novel progresses, is the realisation that people's lives collide from the past in the present, largely indirectly until things come to a point of no return for many involved.
Shoot The Moonlight Out is a huge dollop of gritty, neo-noir and I loved it. Unlike anything I've read in a long time, and it will stay with me for a good time longer.
You just need to read Shoot The Moonlight Out for yourself.
September 25, 2022
This is the third book I’ve read by this author and is my favorite so far. I loved how a careless act by a bored boy at the beginning of the story resonates throughout the book, literally a thrown stone that causes a wide series of ripples subsequently impacting the lives of all of the characters. Mr. Boyle writes about complicated people who have flaws and quirks and who struggle with emotional and practical issues, the human element that fleshes out the crime fiction aspect of the story puts it in the top tier of books I’ve read this year.
May 3, 2022
Good read about loss, crime and revenge. It's about unknown connections that has many twists and turns. A grieving father still mourns the loss of his daughter after 5 years. She is killed in a senseless accident caused by a boyish prank. He meets a young writer who's lost her father. This leads him eventually to discovering the boy who threw the rock that led to his daughter's accident. Lots of story twists in this tale of crime, loss and connections.
September 15, 2024
je m'attendais pas à un livre aussi sombre (après le titre en fr c'est « éteindre la lune » donc finalement quand on le fait on obtient une nuit noire donc peut-être que j'aurais pu m'en douter) mais ce n'est pas pour me déplaire
le roman choral est bien dosé ça change de ma précédente lecture + il y a un bon équilibre de personnages à la fois bons et mauvais, sans qu'on se perde dans qui est qui
j'aime bien aussi le fait que ce ne soit pas une mauvaise fin en elle-même mais pas vrmt un happy ending non plus ; tout le livre est assez doux-amer au final, avec des portraits de Brooklyn au début du XIXe siècle qui sont bien loin de vendre le rêve américain et des personnages qui essayent de s'en sortir plus ou moins légalement
(mention spéciale à lily et jack, le found family ça marche toujours sur moi pitié... j'aime trop leur relation père/fille)
le roman choral est bien dosé ça change de ma précédente lecture + il y a un bon équilibre de personnages à la fois bons et mauvais, sans qu'on se perde dans qui est qui
j'aime bien aussi le fait que ce ne soit pas une mauvaise fin en elle-même mais pas vrmt un happy ending non plus ; tout le livre est assez doux-amer au final, avec des portraits de Brooklyn au début du XIXe siècle qui sont bien loin de vendre le rêve américain et des personnages qui essayent de s'en sortir plus ou moins légalement
(mention spéciale à lily et jack, le found family ça marche toujours sur moi pitié... j'aime trop leur relation père/fille)
March 7, 2022
Slow-Paced, Yet Magnetic!
This is the third book by William Boyle that I enjoyed very much, and I think Shoot The Moonlight Out will be enjoyed equally as much by mystery lovers that are drawn to heavily character-driven plots with a strong, distinctive sense of time and place, and are not bothered by a slow pace. On the other hand, this book is not one that I think will appeal to mystery readers that require a fast-pace plot with lots of action.
The principal reason for my strong enjoyment of Shoot The Moonlight Out stems from Boyle’s excellent ability to develop a set of complex, flawed, desperate, random characters, coupled with his strong ability to create a set of very believable — and, at times, tragic — circumstances, that result in all the characters coming together in such a way that its ending will stay with you for some time after finishing the book. In many ways the author’s strength in these areas reminds me of Richard Price and Dennis Lehane.
Further, be aware that Shoot The Moonlight Out is not a book for readers who need to like most of the characters, and/or who require a happy ending. These readers will definitely not be satisfied with this book. Fans of classic noir, on the other hand, will find a lot to like. I think, if you are like me, you'll find yourself sucked in by the characters who are swept into a downward spiral of desperation as they grapple with the weight of the past and the pull that their neighborhood in southern Brooklyn has on them.
This is the third book by William Boyle that I enjoyed very much, and I think Shoot The Moonlight Out will be enjoyed equally as much by mystery lovers that are drawn to heavily character-driven plots with a strong, distinctive sense of time and place, and are not bothered by a slow pace. On the other hand, this book is not one that I think will appeal to mystery readers that require a fast-pace plot with lots of action.
The principal reason for my strong enjoyment of Shoot The Moonlight Out stems from Boyle’s excellent ability to develop a set of complex, flawed, desperate, random characters, coupled with his strong ability to create a set of very believable — and, at times, tragic — circumstances, that result in all the characters coming together in such a way that its ending will stay with you for some time after finishing the book. In many ways the author’s strength in these areas reminds me of Richard Price and Dennis Lehane.
Further, be aware that Shoot The Moonlight Out is not a book for readers who need to like most of the characters, and/or who require a happy ending. These readers will definitely not be satisfied with this book. Fans of classic noir, on the other hand, will find a lot to like. I think, if you are like me, you'll find yourself sucked in by the characters who are swept into a downward spiral of desperation as they grapple with the weight of the past and the pull that their neighborhood in southern Brooklyn has on them.
March 16, 2022
My first read by this author and initially I wasn’t too sure as I found it a little slow paced but once I had the characters clear I found myself quite immersed in the story. The plot is quite complex but I loved the authenticity of the setting of South Brooklyn, starting mid summer 1996, where the authors knowledge of the area comes into its own. The descriptions are vividly clear - you can almost believe you are there.
Briefly, Bobby and Zeke are teenagers looking for fun and part of this is throwing stones at passing cars. It is mindless fun until one day Bobby throws a small rock which has devastating effects on the young female driver. Fast forward 5 years and in a short space of time we are introduced to Jack the girls father, con man Max Berry, gangster Charlie French, Bobby’s stepsister and wannabes writer Lily and Francesca who is Bobby’s girlfriend. So is lit a low burning fuse throwing all of these lives together in a tragic tale of what could have been, against the reality.
This crime story features a list of characters most of whom are on the wrong side of the law and highlights the broken nature of the neighbourhood. Reading the book is like throwing a bowling ball down the alley knowing full well what is going to happen but watching the movement of the ball the whole way down. A good story, relying on some coincidences and highlighting the potential consequences of earlier actions ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Briefly, Bobby and Zeke are teenagers looking for fun and part of this is throwing stones at passing cars. It is mindless fun until one day Bobby throws a small rock which has devastating effects on the young female driver. Fast forward 5 years and in a short space of time we are introduced to Jack the girls father, con man Max Berry, gangster Charlie French, Bobby’s stepsister and wannabes writer Lily and Francesca who is Bobby’s girlfriend. So is lit a low burning fuse throwing all of these lives together in a tragic tale of what could have been, against the reality.
This crime story features a list of characters most of whom are on the wrong side of the law and highlights the broken nature of the neighbourhood. Reading the book is like throwing a bowling ball down the alley knowing full well what is going to happen but watching the movement of the ball the whole way down. A good story, relying on some coincidences and highlighting the potential consequences of earlier actions ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
February 19, 2022
William Boyle is fast becoming one of my favourite authors and this this his latest, may be his best yet. Boyle’s novels are crime noir novels but where the crimes are not what drives the story, it is the characters. The crimes feel merely like catalysts that affect the actions and the destinies of those characters. This novel, like most of Boyle’s, is set in the Bay Ridge area of Brooklyn, New York, mainly in 2001, prior to 9/11, when events changed the world forever. Bay Ridge is depicted as a run down, decrepit neighbourhood filled with struggling working class families, low life criminals and the elderly just seeing out their last days. The houses, diners, bars and public buildings are all crumbling into disrepair, much like the occupants. However it still has its share of dreamers, mostly the young, who dream of lives outside of their little borough but who also find the ties that bind them, sometimes too hard to break. We follow the stories of the individual characters as their lives intertwine until the novel races to a fatal bloody confrontation where secrets are revealed, past crimes confronted and redemption is sought.
January 16, 2023
Un très beau roman noir comme je les aime avec des personnages incroyablement attachants.
January 6, 2022
William Boyle is the Poet Laureate of Brooklyn, as far as I am concerned. I think I've read all of his books, and I've liked them all to the point that I have annoyed a few friends by repeatedly asking if they've read this book or that one yet. SHOOT THE MOONLIGHT OUT might be my favorite. The comedy of A FRIEND IS A GIFT YOU GIVE YOURSELF is left aside as Boyle returns to the grittier sidewalks and apartments of his native city. The characters are, as always, immediately defined and created with a sincerely empathetically pen. They are broken and hurt and damaged. There are heroes. There are anti-heroes. There are casualties. Boyle's Brooklyn is either a place to leave or a place to succumb to, a character, in as much as it is a setting, never more so than in MOONLIGHT.
September 23, 2024
That hit all the notes for me. Very character driven and being able to relate with the small things that can set off major chain reactions by throwing rocks at cars. I have a such distinct memory of doing this. But there’s such tragedy on this and you want to root for them to get out of the situations that they are in. But in the end you know that they are too far in to escape. It’s a story about grief and loss and how it ripples and connects you with others through stories and dreams and folklore. And the most concerning thing in this in this book is the adult drinking milk all damn time from small cartons or with ice in a glass. Who the hell drinks milk that as your regular go to. So bizarre. Yet so fitting for the character. In the end they all get their comeuppance.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 19, 2023
I enjoyed City of Margins more then this one (same author) That plot was a little tighter. But this book is the same kind of story. Chapters are told from a different characters perspective and their stories are intertwined at the end. The reader already knows how, but the characters do not. Creative writing rocks!
January 18, 2022
The way I had to pull the pieces of myself back together after reading this one…whew. The inevitable convergence of narrative threads is a masterclass in tension. Both heartbreaking and inspirational, I loved every bit of this novel.
November 19, 2024
Enjoyable, easy reading. Nice interweaving stories that play out and overlap in unexpected ways. The characters are well drawn out and all realistic in their desperate lives. Boyle builds a strong sense of Brooklyn in the 1990’s without going overboard.
April 10, 2025
3.5? Dennis Lehane but for Brooklyn. I enjoyed the interconnecting characters journeys.
March 2, 2022
Review to come ✨
July 6, 2023
Brooklyn in the 1990s. Loss. Crime. Love. Redemption? The author ramps up the action as the story progresses. A train wreck waiting to happen. Raw. Well done.
January 8, 2022
I read 50 pages of this book and gave up! The author does make the reader feel right there in the streets of South Brooklyn in summer 1996. I found this a slow moving politically correct take on actions and consequences. Boys throwing rocks at cars and causing a car to crash and a young woman to die in the opening pages did not endear me to this crime novel. Too many other great books out there to waste time on this drivel!
NOT recommended
NOT recommended
February 8, 2022
Forgettable two-dimensional characters meander through a rote and predictable plot full of coincidences. There's a lot of moments where the author really wants the reader to believe something (multiple anecdotes being referred to as "funny" by characters landed totally flat, there's a lot of "You're a good writer" but nothing shown gives any credence to that) and there seems to be a lot of "This person has family trauma usually in the form of a deceased loved one and that gives them character" and it just didn't register with me.
It's possible this work means more to a starving artist, or someone with emotional connections to 1996-2001 Brooklyn, but to me, it fell flat.
It's possible this work means more to a starving artist, or someone with emotional connections to 1996-2001 Brooklyn, but to me, it fell flat.
October 29, 2021
I loved Shoot the Moonlight Out. This was an amazing read with amazing characters. What a crime story, wow. I loved everything about this novel. The way the Author weaves the story, the setting, the way the characters are connected. I'm looking forward to reading more of this Authors work.
I give Shoot the Moonlight Out 5 stars for its New York City amazing crime story.
I would recommend this book to fans of crime drama.
I give Shoot the Moonlight Out 5 stars for its New York City amazing crime story.
I would recommend this book to fans of crime drama.
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