New York City has in recent weeks become the focus of worldwide scrutiny the likes of which it has not previously experienced. The focus, however, has been the New York City everyone thinks of when the words "New York City" are seen or heard. Jim Fusilli, a music critic for The Wall Street Journal, compares the known city with its rough underside and contrasts these two symbiotic levels of civilization in his first novel, CLOSING TIME.

Fusilli does this through the eyes of Terry Orr, an author who no longer writes, except for an occasional missive to his deceased wife Marina. Orr's days and nights are haunted by his wife and their infant son, both of whom were senselessly murdered by a madman who seems to have disappeared. Orr's only connection with his past life is his 12-year-old daughter Bella; although independently wealthy, the trauma done to those in his family who have gone ahead threatens to engulf him and those left behind. As he attempts to find the murderer of his wife and infant son and to right wrongs done to other friends, he finds himself slowly and unwittingly neglecting Bella. Fusilli nicely balances this dichotomy, and that is a good thing.

Orr becomes involved in two cases that he works simultaneously in CLOSING TIME. The first involves the murder of a cab driver; Orr happens upon the driver's body and is compelled to discover who did the deed and why, when the police, overworked and underpaid, are unable to give the matter priority. The second involves the bombing of an art gallery owned by a friend of Orr's who is severely injured in the blast. The second mystery is fairly mundane and almost too easily solved, given the motives of everyone involved. The first mystery, however...ah, that is the one for which the book was written. Orr's investigation of the apparently senseless murder takes him to areas of New York that you won't find listed in The New York Times Guide to New York City --- and it is in these scenes, where Orr places himself in dangers unknown and deadly, that Fusilli really shines. One gets the sense that Fusilli spent hours climbing through abandoned buildings and torn fence wire to get that descriptive sense of place upon which so many novels stand or fall. Here, CLOSING TIME, and Fusilli, stand tall.

CLOSING TIME leaves plenty of room for character development in future novels involving Orr, Bella, and the cast of secondary characters introduced therein. While this novel could have benefited from a bit more development from the get go, the haunting descriptions of New York City's underbelly make that deficiency a sacrifice worth experiencing. Orr has descriptive powers to burn; if he combines that talent with more character development, his next novel will be a classic.