Nico Kelly, the title character in Alex R. Johnson’s new novel Brooklyn Motto, is caught between worlds. Approaching 30, Kelly still enjoys his unscheduled days watching multiple films, drinking cheap beers, playing pinball in dive bars and fumbling around women. But he’s also questioning his job as a private investigator uncovering insurance fraud- does this make him a rebel or part of the system he loathes?
As Kelly witnesses a murder on the job, he is drawn into a series of mysterious circumstances that involves his former PI mentor Finch, a City Hall fixer named Wally (who may be a friend of foe), and his aunt Cookie, a die-hard Brooklynite, who turns out to be a better PI than he is.
Brooklyn Motto is a stylish thriller that seamlessly weaves in parts of Brooklyn and the East Village of the late-90s through car service and subway rides. It also vividly portrays the last stages of gentrification that was changing the city in not just real estate terms, but culture and aesthetics, while also describing how a thoughtful young adult slowly turns into a man.
“The story is about a lot of things, but one focus is about a period in one’s life when things suddenly go from the passive to the active, or when someone is making choices instead of reacting to things,” said Johnson during a recent interview with BK Reader.
Brooklyn Motto is packed with nostalgia for 90s New York. While Kelly investigates the likely murder of his aunt’s lover, Johnson, who is also a filmmaker and screenwriter, creates a character rare in present-day New York- one intimately connected to her block and community through neighbors and a watchful eye.
Johnson, a Prospect Heights resident, said he also wanted to show Kelly’s split between his American and Latin American heritage, mirroring his own experience with his Ecuadorian and Irish family from Sunnyside, Queens.
“I felt racism of various levels from both sides of the family,” Johnson said, who made sure Cookie chided her nephew for not being able to speak Spanish despite having an Ecuadorian mother.
Throughout the novel, Kelly also tries to reckon with other parts of his identity, including the profound effect of his father’s shaky past.
Brooklyn Motto is a fast-paced thriller noir that will appeal most certainly to Generation X readers (who would be wise to read the excellent acknowledgements), but also to those who love character-driven urban tales filled with pay phones and pagers, shadowy figures in city government and street-smart locals who carve out their own world in a city of millions.
Best yet, the book comes with a soundtrack (available on Spotify, Tidal or Apple Music), which includes songs from Yo La Tengo, Digable Planets and Stereolab.
“I’m that guy who has been making mixtapes for everyone forever, I can’t help it,” said Johnson. “Music helps set the mood; it's thematic. I hope it helps set the mood for the book, which to me is also about cold beers and warm nostalgia.”
For more information on Brooklyn Motto and to purchase the book, click here.
