But still Lionel plods on to discover the truth about Frank’s (life and) death while trying to avoid the bullets and the bashing that may bring his own life to a distinct and bloody end.Īll in all, Motherless Brooklyn wasn’t the book I had expected it to be. Is it any wonder he is known as the Human Freakshow?Įventually, after following several false leads, Lionel begins to realise how he has been conned by a man who was not the fine upstanding citizen he had lead the orphans to believe he was. To complicate matters further, Lionel has Tourette’s syndrome, so that he cannot just blend into the background: everything he does is peppered with gunfire verbal barking and annoying repetitive motions (for instance, touching people’s collars over and over).

Determined to find out who killed Frank - and why - leads him on an unforgettable and highly dangerous adventure involving gangsters, Japanese monks, the victim’s angry widow, a giant and a garbage cop. Lionel Essrog, one of four orphan boys taken in by Frank years earlier to help run the ‘agency’, feels his world falling apart. One of his underlings lands in jail and two others vie for his position. Motherless Brooklyn opens with a small-time mobster, Frank Minna, dying of fatal gunshot wounds, leaving his limo service cum detective agency rudderless. Fiction – paperback Vintage Books USA 336 pages 2000.

Motherless in brooklyn book