Good story of a Civil War veteran in New York City with a disfigured face who meets up with Herman Melville, who is working as a customs inspector. Interesting historical novel. ( )

William Bartholomew was a soldier in the Civil War until he was shot in the face. Now a few years past the end of the war, Billy is living in New York, wearing a mask to cover his ruined face and making a dubious living trading on futures and stocks. He meets a man who intrigues him, a failed writer working the night shift as a customs inspector and they become friends. His other friends include a Black prostitute whom he loves, a Chinese woman who makes her money taking in washing, and a man who served with him in the Union Army. When his lover asks him to help her in a daring plan to rescue children from the South, Billy gathers his friends and a few others and comes up with a plan.

This is mostly a story of what daily life was like in post-Civil War New York, from the relative comforts and financial insecurity of a family clinging to the middle class to those scraping by with nothing at all in shocking circumstances. Frederick Busch tells a nineteenth century tale, seen through modern eyes but told in the voice of the nineteenth century. It's a difficult juggling act, but Busch manages to make it work. Here's a novel that reads like it could have been written 150 years ago, but which sees women, immigrants, the formerly enslaved and those making their livings as they can as full human beings and which looks unflinchingly at how they are preyed upon by the wealthy and white dominant class. But this isn't a lecture, but an action-packed and heart-breaking story of an morally-complex man making his way in the world and how his past, both his childhood and his experiences in the war, inform his present. ( )

Got half way through but couldn't finish it. The story line of the book sounded intriguing and the characters were interesting, but ultimately I found the prose to be endlessly repetitive and drowning in descriptions of atmosphere. Perhaps if a reader is surprised to learn that Manhattan in the mid-19th century was overrun by filth and odors, this book would hold the reader's interest.

I read this book several years ago, before I started reviewing everything I read. With all the TV ads recently for the new film, AMERICAN SNIPER, I've been thinking again about this Fred Busch novel, THE NIGHT INSPECTOR. Because its central character is a disfigured Civil War veteran, and yes, he was a sniper. Herman Melville, a writer much admired by Busch, is also an important character in this dark tale set in New York City. If you want to read about snipers, and what it does to a person - physically, mentally and emotionally - then read this book by one of the masters of American fiction. Highly recommended. ( )

A story of a Civil War veteran who aims to make his fortune in a new America. Busch does a fine job of capturing the amoral just-getting-the-job-done value of America—something I never thought about stretching back as far as the Civil War, but I suppose it makes sense that it would. People were no doubt just as motivated by money back then as they are now. This is a must-read. ( )