A look at the cover might suggest that this novel is "merely" a cop story, but while there are cops in it, it is much, much more than that. CRUISERS is the story of two men juxtaposed by time and place into a sort of destiny, despite the seeming randomness of their coming together. Russell Boyd is a New England cop; Frank Kohler is the survivor of a childhood horror who years later is trying to make sense of what happened and how it has transformed him. The two men have nothing to do with one another, yet they encounter each other more than once, as do the women in their lives. With a powerful and dramatic sense of inevitability, the threads of their individual lives are drawn together as though by fate, until new horrors erupt. The story of the two men is compelling in its narrative alone, but author Craig Nova is a poetic writer, and he is one of the best writers I've ever read for giving a sense of what internal monologue and thought might sound like if we could hear characters thinking. CRUISERS is thought-provoking and stylish without being baroque. It is a fine novel, a subtle and nuanced thriller that quietly transcends the stigma of that genre by being an absorbing artistic and literary work. ( )

A great work of modern fiction. ( )