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Shot In Detroit
Nominated for the Edgar Award
Violet Hart is a photographer who has always returned to cobble out a life for herself in the oddly womblike interiors of Detroit. Nearing forty, she's keenly aware that the time for artistic recognition is running out. When her lover, Bill, a Detroit mortician, needs a photograph of a body, she agrees to takes the picture. It's an artistic success and Violet is energized by the subject matter, persuading Bill to allow her to take pictures of some of his other "clients," eventually settling on photographing young, black men.
When Violet's new portfolio is launched, she quickly strikes a deal, agreeing to produce a dozen pictures with a short deadline, confident because dead bodies are commonplace in Detroit and she has access to the city's most prominent mortician. These demands soon place Violet in the position of having to strain to meet her quota.
As time runs out, how will Violet come up with enough subjects to photograph without losing her soul or her life in the process? A riveting novel of psychological suspense, Patricia Abbott continues to cement herself as one of our very best writers of the darkness that lies within the human heart.
Violet Hart is a photographer who has always returned to cobble out a life for herself in the oddly womblike interiors of Detroit. Nearing forty, she's keenly aware that the time for artistic recognition is running out. When her lover, Bill, a Detroit mortician, needs a photograph of a body, she agrees to takes the picture. It's an artistic success and Violet is energized by the subject matter, persuading Bill to allow her to take pictures of some of his other "clients," eventually settling on photographing young, black men.
When Violet's new portfolio is launched, she quickly strikes a deal, agreeing to produce a dozen pictures with a short deadline, confident because dead bodies are commonplace in Detroit and she has access to the city's most prominent mortician. These demands soon place Violet in the position of having to strain to meet her quota.
As time runs out, how will Violet come up with enough subjects to photograph without losing her soul or her life in the process? A riveting novel of psychological suspense, Patricia Abbott continues to cement herself as one of our very best writers of the darkness that lies within the human heart.
320 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 14, 2016
About the author
Patricia Abbott
41 books26 followersPatricia Abbott is the Deringer-winning author of more than sixty-five stories in print and online publications. She has forthcoming stories in the anthologies: Damn Near Dead II, Bats in the Belfry and Beat to a Pulp, The First Round. Her latest novel Shot in Detroit has been nominated for an Edgar Award. She lives and works in Detroit.
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October 23, 2019Synopsis: Violet Hart is a photographer on the outskirts of Detroit and takes artistic pictures of dead bodies. One of her friends goes missing.
March 18, 2017
Violet Hart lives on the fringes of Detroit. She's prone to poking around Belle Isle Park in the pre-dawn with her camera, looking for gritty shots of gritty people doing gritty things. She lives in frugal fashion in a dreary little apartment in the blue-collar suburbs with a mirror over the bed. Violet wants to be an artist. She wants to be taken seriously. She knows it's been too long since she felt “that chill" from any photographs she's produced. She's looking for truth.
Violet has a thing for Ted Ernst, who runs a gallery where some of her photographs are being exhibited. She's also close to a funeral home director named Bill Fontanel. They are lovers. The third guy in Violet's unusual orbit is a street artist named Derek Olson. He's got peculiar ideas for artistic materials and looks for them while poking around the aforementioned Belle Isle.
With a traditional mystery set-up, Violet Hart would soon stumble across a murder victim during her semi-seedy wanderings and get entangled or lead-up the investigation. But Violet's interests are art, not any pseudo role as amateur sleuth, even when Derek goes missing. Violet gets caught up a bit in the questioning around Derek's demise and she does go in search of answers to a few questions, but she's hardly driving the action. Violet's main focus, her ticket to recognition, is a series of photographs she's taking of Bill's clients, young men who have lost their lives one way or another on the hard streets of Detroit. Most of the victims died as the result of violence, but not all.
Abbott’s writing is cool and straightforward and fully immerses us in Violet’s glum worldview. Comparisons to Patricia Highsmith and the darker stuff from Ruth Rendell, to me, are apt.
"I shot away, taking more picture of Ramir. Being a drug addict had taken a lot out of the guy, and I wanted to put some of it back for this final picture. He was handsome beneath the ravages of too little food, too many nights in the rough, and too many drugs. The bone structure was still there. I wasn't doing an expose of heroin-cool cadavers. I'd save it for another time. An audience would notice the beauty in these men; cry out at their untimely deaths."
For a photographer looking to make money from art rather than shooting dog shows and retirement parties, the funeral parlor's clients light up Violet’s artistic soul and the questions she sets out to answer rely on her observational skills.
So "Shot in Detroit" is a quasi-mystery (it's one of five finalists for an Edgar Award this year as Best Paperback Original) stirred gently together with a terrific character study and a dollop of psychological suspense. The novel offers a compelling portrait of Detroit's recent blight and urban struggles, both the real property and the very real people. Violet is cool and jaded right down to the end, which delivers a nifty jolt. If you like your protagonists warm and cuddly, seek elsewhere. If you like a slice of gritty urban writing, check this out. Like the photographs Violet takes of the dead, Abbott’s tale is imbued with a genuine dignity.
Violet has a thing for Ted Ernst, who runs a gallery where some of her photographs are being exhibited. She's also close to a funeral home director named Bill Fontanel. They are lovers. The third guy in Violet's unusual orbit is a street artist named Derek Olson. He's got peculiar ideas for artistic materials and looks for them while poking around the aforementioned Belle Isle.
With a traditional mystery set-up, Violet Hart would soon stumble across a murder victim during her semi-seedy wanderings and get entangled or lead-up the investigation. But Violet's interests are art, not any pseudo role as amateur sleuth, even when Derek goes missing. Violet gets caught up a bit in the questioning around Derek's demise and she does go in search of answers to a few questions, but she's hardly driving the action. Violet's main focus, her ticket to recognition, is a series of photographs she's taking of Bill's clients, young men who have lost their lives one way or another on the hard streets of Detroit. Most of the victims died as the result of violence, but not all.
Abbott’s writing is cool and straightforward and fully immerses us in Violet’s glum worldview. Comparisons to Patricia Highsmith and the darker stuff from Ruth Rendell, to me, are apt.
"I shot away, taking more picture of Ramir. Being a drug addict had taken a lot out of the guy, and I wanted to put some of it back for this final picture. He was handsome beneath the ravages of too little food, too many nights in the rough, and too many drugs. The bone structure was still there. I wasn't doing an expose of heroin-cool cadavers. I'd save it for another time. An audience would notice the beauty in these men; cry out at their untimely deaths."
For a photographer looking to make money from art rather than shooting dog shows and retirement parties, the funeral parlor's clients light up Violet’s artistic soul and the questions she sets out to answer rely on her observational skills.
So "Shot in Detroit" is a quasi-mystery (it's one of five finalists for an Edgar Award this year as Best Paperback Original) stirred gently together with a terrific character study and a dollop of psychological suspense. The novel offers a compelling portrait of Detroit's recent blight and urban struggles, both the real property and the very real people. Violet is cool and jaded right down to the end, which delivers a nifty jolt. If you like your protagonists warm and cuddly, seek elsewhere. If you like a slice of gritty urban writing, check this out. Like the photographs Violet takes of the dead, Abbott’s tale is imbued with a genuine dignity.
December 13, 2016
Reviewed for Library Journal 6/15/2016
At 40, Violet Hart is a down-on-her-luck photographer still waiting for her big break. Living in Detroit, with its plethora of crumbling and abandoned buildings, she is drawn to "ruin porn," but her focus changes when her lover Ben, a mortician catering to the black community, asks her to take a final photo of a family's loved one. In this moment she finds inspiration to capture the images of at least a dozen young black men in their final state of repose and to exhibit these pictures in her own one-woman show. By immersing herself in the world of the dead and constantly searching for "unusual" scenes to shoot, Violet inadvertently places herself, and those around her, in harm's way. Derringer Award-winning author Abbott (Concrete Angel) has delivered a fresh look at the disintegration of Detroit as seen through the lens of a camera. Less a suspense novel than the plot summary may imply, it is instead a detailed account of one woman battling her inner demons against the backdrop of a city that is doing the same. VERDICT This title is bound to have strong regional appeal, and fans of Megan Abbott may be curious, as the author is Abbott's mother
At 40, Violet Hart is a down-on-her-luck photographer still waiting for her big break. Living in Detroit, with its plethora of crumbling and abandoned buildings, she is drawn to "ruin porn," but her focus changes when her lover Ben, a mortician catering to the black community, asks her to take a final photo of a family's loved one. In this moment she finds inspiration to capture the images of at least a dozen young black men in their final state of repose and to exhibit these pictures in her own one-woman show. By immersing herself in the world of the dead and constantly searching for "unusual" scenes to shoot, Violet inadvertently places herself, and those around her, in harm's way. Derringer Award-winning author Abbott (Concrete Angel) has delivered a fresh look at the disintegration of Detroit as seen through the lens of a camera. Less a suspense novel than the plot summary may imply, it is instead a detailed account of one woman battling her inner demons against the backdrop of a city that is doing the same. VERDICT This title is bound to have strong regional appeal, and fans of Megan Abbott may be curious, as the author is Abbott's mother
October 5, 2017
Starting off with this book, I had high hopes. I'm not entirely sure where all the positive reviews come from. The characters in this book were downright unlikable. Vi was self-centered, thoughtless, and pretentious. Maybe this was intentional, but I found not a single redeeming quality for her.
Bill was better, but came across as a token black guy just to make her obsession with race less discriminatory. He had the beginnings of a caring, sympathetic, professional person, yet it stopped there. He wasn't allowed to develop into his own person. He was simply a background and foundation for Vi's story to grow - their relationship was completely unbelievable.
As the story went on, I started to become frustrated with the sentence structure and complete lack of editing. By p.173 I lost it. Vi and Bill are on the phone discussing the investigation she's gotten herself messed up in, from the first-person perspective of Vi, and Abbott writes, "Bill closed his eyes to think." WHAT? I had to reread the section a few times just to be sure I didn't miss a subtle transition to an in-person conversation. There was none. However, transitions such as what I mentioned occur quite a bit and chop up the cohesion of the story.
Finally, I skipped to the epilogue at some point and realized that Abbott was attempting to write a story about social injustice. Now, maybe I'm a bit biased because I read this literally after reading Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult. While I didn't LOVE her story either, she at least did a good job truly investigating racism and micro-aggression in America. Abbott seems like she had this idea for a story, and decided to call it a social injustice story just to give it a bit of heft. Unjust deaths of black men in America is a huge deal, yet the protagonist was photographing ANY black man who had died. Many of her subjects were the victims of natural means or accidents, not murder. Therefore her exhibit was not about social injustice, but about exhibiting black men who were presented in a classier way than they may have spent their lives. There was so much focus on Bill's ability to make them presentable and artistic...as though they had no value of their own before he got his hands on them.
She does touch on the potential of Vi capitalizing on their deaths for her own gain and exploiting them, but then she backpedals her character from the idea because....wait for it...Vi is 25% black!! Even though she grew up "white" without a black father in her life and probably never once experienced the challenges Black Americans do, suddenly she felt entitled to continue her project.
Could this have gotten any worse? No. Gah.
Bill was better, but came across as a token black guy just to make her obsession with race less discriminatory. He had the beginnings of a caring, sympathetic, professional person, yet it stopped there. He wasn't allowed to develop into his own person. He was simply a background and foundation for Vi's story to grow - their relationship was completely unbelievable.
As the story went on, I started to become frustrated with the sentence structure and complete lack of editing. By p.173 I lost it. Vi and Bill are on the phone discussing the investigation she's gotten herself messed up in, from the first-person perspective of Vi, and Abbott writes, "Bill closed his eyes to think." WHAT? I had to reread the section a few times just to be sure I didn't miss a subtle transition to an in-person conversation. There was none. However, transitions such as what I mentioned occur quite a bit and chop up the cohesion of the story.
Finally, I skipped to the epilogue at some point and realized that Abbott was attempting to write a story about social injustice. Now, maybe I'm a bit biased because I read this literally after reading Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult. While I didn't LOVE her story either, she at least did a good job truly investigating racism and micro-aggression in America. Abbott seems like she had this idea for a story, and decided to call it a social injustice story just to give it a bit of heft. Unjust deaths of black men in America is a huge deal, yet the protagonist was photographing ANY black man who had died. Many of her subjects were the victims of natural means or accidents, not murder. Therefore her exhibit was not about social injustice, but about exhibiting black men who were presented in a classier way than they may have spent their lives. There was so much focus on Bill's ability to make them presentable and artistic...as though they had no value of their own before he got his hands on them.
She does touch on the potential of Vi capitalizing on their deaths for her own gain and exploiting them, but then she backpedals her character from the idea because....wait for it...Vi is 25% black!! Even though she grew up "white" without a black father in her life and probably never once experienced the challenges Black Americans do, suddenly she felt entitled to continue her project.
Could this have gotten any worse? No. Gah.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 26, 2017
Consistently interesting...but for me at least, it never fully came to the boil. The story has many strengths, including a well-defined central character in Violet. Her thoughts and desires are explored in a convincing way, along with her personal relationships. The backdrop of decayed Detroit is also utilized well.
Ultimately, though, I thought the plot went in too many different directions, and the big twist was not too hard to see coming. It's also not as strong on the serrated Dorothy Parker-type wit that enlivens other Abbott works I have enjoyed more.
Ultimately, though, I thought the plot went in too many different directions, and the big twist was not too hard to see coming. It's also not as strong on the serrated Dorothy Parker-type wit that enlivens other Abbott works I have enjoyed more.
September 22, 2024
Violet Hart is a struggling photographer trying to make a name for herself on the outskirts of Detroit. After being asked by her boyfriend to take a picture of a recently deceased young man being cared for by his funeral home, Vi decides to make this her new project.
Nothing about this book qualifies it as a psychological thriller. It is poorly written, and while many themes are thrown into the story, nothing actually sticks long enough to turn into anything meaningful.
Nothing about this book qualifies it as a psychological thriller. It is poorly written, and while many themes are thrown into the story, nothing actually sticks long enough to turn into anything meaningful.
August 24, 2017
Well written and good character development. Violet is emotionally stunted at times but this rings true in relation to her upbringing. I felt it had very good pacing and this novel kept my attention. Abbot brightly and darkly showed the artist's obsession in this novel. Happy I discovered her novels.
February 10, 2017
Violet becomes obsessed with photographing death that it consumes her life. Abbott writes complex novels (and short stories) and Shot in Detroit is no exception. What is Violet's motivation for capturing the dead on film? Is it crass careerism? A desperate need for approval? Or is it that she only feels comfortable interacting with the world through the means of her camera?
This book straddles the line between literary and noir. It's more about transgression than crime, and Abbott does an excellent job bringing modern-day Detroit into the story.
This book straddles the line between literary and noir. It's more about transgression than crime, and Abbott does an excellent job bringing modern-day Detroit into the story.
June 30, 2018
Patricia Abbott takes photography to a whole new dimension in this murder mystery. This is a very enjoyable read.
June 7, 2022
I don’t know why but I couldn’t make myself relate to the main character. The book kept a steady pace but it wasn’t always my favorite.
October 16, 2016
I chose this book from the library's browsing shelf because of its setting in present-day Detroit, where I have family connections. It turned out to be neither a mystery nor a thriller, but a rather contrived tale revolving around personal, artistic and racial ethics. Vi, a photographer with frustrated professional ambitions, hooks up with Bill, a black mortician who's a genius at dressing cadavers, and a macabre project is born involving artistic photos of young dead black men. I won't try to list all the ways this story rang false for me, but I haven't visited Detroit in years, and maybe these days nothing there is too weird to believe. I would be curious to know what black readers thought of this book.
June 23, 2016
I rarely abandon a novel once I've started it. There have been some—Moby Dick and Gravity's Rainbow come to mind—I've needed several false starts before getting up enough traction or momentum to finally read to the end. Most recently I gave up on a debut novel by a brilliant writer I won't name whose narrator is a serial killer sexually aroused by his murders. Creeped me out, and I doubt I will ever come back to it. Squeamish, some might say, but I prefer “humanely sensitive.” I can't help identifying with compelling characters in novels, and there are some I just cannot abide.
Violet Hart, the narrator in Patricia Abbott's new novel, Shot in Detroit, seemed at first to be one of these. Hart is an artist obsessed with taking photographs of dead young black men in their coffins. Knowing this I might never have started the book had the author been someone other than Abbott. Even then I hesitated a tad, even still savoring her debut novel, Concrete Angel, which has lit up the crime-fiction community to rave reviews and awards. I've lived long enough to have come to terms with death—of family and friends, natural and violent--and have reached an albeit edgy peace with the inevitability of my own demise, not unreasonably distant down that road we're told we all eventually must walk alone. At the same time morbidity continues to put me off. Grateful Dead to me is the name of a band. It might mean more to some, but not me--I hear the rippling intro to Truckin'. I feel obliged to focus my attention on the potential for growth the statistically brief time left to me has in store. Better busy being born than busy dying, as Bob Dylan sagely advised.
So wouldn't you know, several chapters in, Shot in Detroit started giving me the same creepy feeling I got from the other novel, the one with the sexual fetish serial killer narrator I abandoned. And I wasn't much liking Violet Hart, who seemed a calloused young woman who put her art above all else. She has a mirror on the ceiling above her bed for added dimension to her trysts, which to her seem to have little more significance than carnal quality. But more than not liking her, I wasn't liking what she was doing, taking photos of dead bodies in coffins. It didn't help that she was taking great pains, artistic pains, to preserve these young men in images that greatly interested the owner of a gallery who wanted to feature them in a showing. I found this disturbing, and so did Hart's boyfriend, the mortician who had unintentionally sparked her obsession and, although allowing her to shoot the photos at his funeral home, was growing uneasy about her project.
Something kept me on track, though. Abbott's skill with characters, bringing them alive with yearnings and fears, weaknesses, and strengths, has a way of winning you over, infiltrating your defenses. You start feeling friendly, no matter what they're up to. You sort of want to have their back, help them when they're in a jam. It was Father's Day when I read Shot in Detroit. My own daughter is in Los Angeles, a struggling actress. I'm in Virginia. I worry about her out there. As I read Violet Hart's unsettling narrative I began to wonder why Sarah hadn't called me yet. My paternal instincts were kicking in. They bled unto the pages I was reading.
Soon I was Violet's dad. Her own father had abandoned the family shortly after she was born. Her story was drawing me in as his surrogate. “Stop with this thing about dead bodies,” I more than once almost hollered. “Keep your mouth shut,” I snapped silently while police detectives interrogated her as a suspect in the violent deaths of a couple of young men she knew. I offered unspoken sympathy and gentle advice during her interior monologues when she worried about her decisions and the course her life was taking. “No!!” I'm afraid I might have shouted out loud when it seemed the unthinkable had just happened.
So did I finish Shot in Detroit? Would I have written this review if I hadn't? (I don't review books I've abandoned, even to pan what I've read of them.) Did I like Shot in Detroit? Yes. Speak up, I can't hear you. YES, DAMMIT, I LOVED IT!! Thanks. Oh, did my daughter call? C'mon, you want me to spoil the ending?
Violet Hart, the narrator in Patricia Abbott's new novel, Shot in Detroit, seemed at first to be one of these. Hart is an artist obsessed with taking photographs of dead young black men in their coffins. Knowing this I might never have started the book had the author been someone other than Abbott. Even then I hesitated a tad, even still savoring her debut novel, Concrete Angel, which has lit up the crime-fiction community to rave reviews and awards. I've lived long enough to have come to terms with death—of family and friends, natural and violent--and have reached an albeit edgy peace with the inevitability of my own demise, not unreasonably distant down that road we're told we all eventually must walk alone. At the same time morbidity continues to put me off. Grateful Dead to me is the name of a band. It might mean more to some, but not me--I hear the rippling intro to Truckin'. I feel obliged to focus my attention on the potential for growth the statistically brief time left to me has in store. Better busy being born than busy dying, as Bob Dylan sagely advised.
So wouldn't you know, several chapters in, Shot in Detroit started giving me the same creepy feeling I got from the other novel, the one with the sexual fetish serial killer narrator I abandoned. And I wasn't much liking Violet Hart, who seemed a calloused young woman who put her art above all else. She has a mirror on the ceiling above her bed for added dimension to her trysts, which to her seem to have little more significance than carnal quality. But more than not liking her, I wasn't liking what she was doing, taking photos of dead bodies in coffins. It didn't help that she was taking great pains, artistic pains, to preserve these young men in images that greatly interested the owner of a gallery who wanted to feature them in a showing. I found this disturbing, and so did Hart's boyfriend, the mortician who had unintentionally sparked her obsession and, although allowing her to shoot the photos at his funeral home, was growing uneasy about her project.
Something kept me on track, though. Abbott's skill with characters, bringing them alive with yearnings and fears, weaknesses, and strengths, has a way of winning you over, infiltrating your defenses. You start feeling friendly, no matter what they're up to. You sort of want to have their back, help them when they're in a jam. It was Father's Day when I read Shot in Detroit. My own daughter is in Los Angeles, a struggling actress. I'm in Virginia. I worry about her out there. As I read Violet Hart's unsettling narrative I began to wonder why Sarah hadn't called me yet. My paternal instincts were kicking in. They bled unto the pages I was reading.
Soon I was Violet's dad. Her own father had abandoned the family shortly after she was born. Her story was drawing me in as his surrogate. “Stop with this thing about dead bodies,” I more than once almost hollered. “Keep your mouth shut,” I snapped silently while police detectives interrogated her as a suspect in the violent deaths of a couple of young men she knew. I offered unspoken sympathy and gentle advice during her interior monologues when she worried about her decisions and the course her life was taking. “No!!” I'm afraid I might have shouted out loud when it seemed the unthinkable had just happened.
So did I finish Shot in Detroit? Would I have written this review if I hadn't? (I don't review books I've abandoned, even to pan what I've read of them.) Did I like Shot in Detroit? Yes. Speak up, I can't hear you. YES, DAMMIT, I LOVED IT!! Thanks. Oh, did my daughter call? C'mon, you want me to spoil the ending?
October 18, 2016
This was an odd book. It details the struggles of a young woman, Violet, a photographer in Detroit, Michigan. She is getting older and hasn't had the success she had hoped. She is destined to live a tedious life, taking pictures of life's usual rituals: births, marriages, bar mitzvah's etc. Then her latest boyfriend, a black man named Bill, an undertaker, asks her to photograph his latest client. His usual photographer is unavailable, the family want the picture, and time is of the essence. She agrees to help him out and a creative spark is lit.
Violet is not a likeable person. She has few friends, doesn't get along with her mother, her father is a dead beat dad, and she doesn't keep boyfriends very long. Could be the mirror on her bedroom ceiling; or the dusty, messy state of her apartment, or her general air of disinterest. Whatever. She's just not that nice.
In spite of Bill's reservations, she persuades him to call her whenever there is a dead, young black guy at the funeral parlour. Bill gets the permission from the family and Vi hurries over to get the picture. Her goal is to take a dozen pictures course and have an exhibition at the local gallery (owned by another sleazy person).
During this time, Vi meets a socially inept young man, Derek, on Belle Isle. He is intrigued by her and is willing to call her if anything unusual shows up as he prowls the area after dark. He next contacts her when he finds something she might find interesting. In fact, he tracks her down to her home. Subsequently, he discovers something right up her alley. She hastily grabs her cameras and rushes to meet him. Disgusted yet intrigued by his find, she takes pictures but tells him to call the police.
As a result, she is involved in a police investigation and then becomes their prime suspect.
Throughout all this, she remains an unsympathetic character. However, something compelled me to finish the book. Maybe the writing? Maybe the subject, photography? Maybe because I know artists who could be just like her?
A disturbing book about how people, obsession, upbringing even, can direct the course of our lives.
Violet is not a likeable person. She has few friends, doesn't get along with her mother, her father is a dead beat dad, and she doesn't keep boyfriends very long. Could be the mirror on her bedroom ceiling; or the dusty, messy state of her apartment, or her general air of disinterest. Whatever. She's just not that nice.
In spite of Bill's reservations, she persuades him to call her whenever there is a dead, young black guy at the funeral parlour. Bill gets the permission from the family and Vi hurries over to get the picture. Her goal is to take a dozen pictures course and have an exhibition at the local gallery (owned by another sleazy person).
During this time, Vi meets a socially inept young man, Derek, on Belle Isle. He is intrigued by her and is willing to call her if anything unusual shows up as he prowls the area after dark. He next contacts her when he finds something she might find interesting. In fact, he tracks her down to her home. Subsequently, he discovers something right up her alley. She hastily grabs her cameras and rushes to meet him. Disgusted yet intrigued by his find, she takes pictures but tells him to call the police.
As a result, she is involved in a police investigation and then becomes their prime suspect.
Throughout all this, she remains an unsympathetic character. However, something compelled me to finish the book. Maybe the writing? Maybe the subject, photography? Maybe because I know artists who could be just like her?
A disturbing book about how people, obsession, upbringing even, can direct the course of our lives.
June 23, 2016
When we first meet Detroit-based freelance photographer Violet, she’s on her way to Belle Isle, “a huge park on the water in a spectacular state of decay,” to take some pictures of what she refers to as “ruin porn.” In the gray early morning light—perfect for taking pictures, she’s soon explaining to a pair of disapproving cops—the park looks threatening, but all it takes is a flash of sunlight hitting the spires of the Renaissance Center, and the park’s demeanor is transformed into something benign and picturesque. But Violet has her photographs, she’s seen the skull beneath the skin, so to speak.
SHOT IN DETROIT is Abbott’s second novel (her first, the excellent CONCRETE ANGEL, has been nominated for a Macavity Award for best first mystery), and it is the whole package. Not only is there a stunning sense of place here—details only someone who knows and loves the city like an ugly child would know—but it is also crammed with shrewd observations about people and their motivations. Abbott knows what makes people tick and through her deeply flawed central character, we find ourselves confronting our own darker impulses.
Violet is a stunning character, but the character work throughout the novel is outstanding. Even minor characters—the literary equivalent of a “walk on” role—get their moment to shine. And Violet isn’t the only one with a character arc or the only one who goes through a crisis of conscience. The meta here is complex, part celebrity culture, part disaster tourism, part voyeuristic curiosity. And we never have the luxury of being “outside” the story of looking in—or down—on Violet. Because we can see how easily we might be Violet.
SHOT IN DETROIT is Abbott’s second novel (her first, the excellent CONCRETE ANGEL, has been nominated for a Macavity Award for best first mystery), and it is the whole package. Not only is there a stunning sense of place here—details only someone who knows and loves the city like an ugly child would know—but it is also crammed with shrewd observations about people and their motivations. Abbott knows what makes people tick and through her deeply flawed central character, we find ourselves confronting our own darker impulses.
Violet is a stunning character, but the character work throughout the novel is outstanding. Even minor characters—the literary equivalent of a “walk on” role—get their moment to shine. And Violet isn’t the only one with a character arc or the only one who goes through a crisis of conscience. The meta here is complex, part celebrity culture, part disaster tourism, part voyeuristic curiosity. And we never have the luxury of being “outside” the story of looking in—or down—on Violet. Because we can see how easily we might be Violet.
September 13, 2016
Wow what a good book! Originally I picked it up because the setting was Detroit and I always like to see if authors know the city or just selected it for it's reputation. I dislike then finding errors in site locations or freeway names etc. Patricia Abbott is from Detroit, knows Belle Isle, the ins and outs of our urban oasis, gritty and family oriented abounding with odd people. So the book was a delight. I want to recommend it to a friend but not sure if she will be put off by the dead people. After my initial revulsion of the work this artist does I found her descriptions of her work beautiful, respectful and honorable. I appreciate how she begins chapters with a news story of tragic deaths or quotes about photography and shows us the actual story and art behind the headlines. What we don't see on Channel 7 news, the family, the life behind the headlines. "Above all, life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference". I finished the book feeling different and must share with photographer friend in Wyandotte who takes photo's of fires, firemen and the burning of abandoned buildings...maybe this will inspire her in some odd way to see the inspirational niche she's been seeking. Read this book.
August 20, 2016
From my review:
Shot in Detroit is not a family drama, at least on the surface. Although Violet Hart's mother Bunny, a career waitress, appears in the story, she does so more as a cautionary tale, and in some ways only underscores how alone and adrift Violet really is. Violet is a professional photographer approaching forty, and Violet's panic about her career's trajectory is somewhat akin to a woman experiencing the promptings of her biological clock. There's a kind of "now or never" quality to her desperation.
The opening pages of Shot in Detroit find Violet heading out before dawn to Belle Isle, an island park in the middle of the Detroit River, hoping to find subject matter for a first rate photograph. By this, she doesn't mean the charmingly picturesque. Belle Isle is a misnomer for "a huge park in a spectacular state of decay." This is Detroit, circa 2011, a city that's hit bottom but doesn't know it yet, and hasn't imagined even the tentative hopeful resurgence it's experiencing now.
Shot in Detroit is not a family drama, at least on the surface. Although Violet Hart's mother Bunny, a career waitress, appears in the story, she does so more as a cautionary tale, and in some ways only underscores how alone and adrift Violet really is. Violet is a professional photographer approaching forty, and Violet's panic about her career's trajectory is somewhat akin to a woman experiencing the promptings of her biological clock. There's a kind of "now or never" quality to her desperation.
The opening pages of Shot in Detroit find Violet heading out before dawn to Belle Isle, an island park in the middle of the Detroit River, hoping to find subject matter for a first rate photograph. By this, she doesn't mean the charmingly picturesque. Belle Isle is a misnomer for "a huge park in a spectacular state of decay." This is Detroit, circa 2011, a city that's hit bottom but doesn't know it yet, and hasn't imagined even the tentative hopeful resurgence it's experiencing now.
October 8, 2016
Loved the book until the end. What a stupid way for a man to die. Violet is seeing a man who works as an undertaker, Bill. He is black and does an excellent job of laying out the death. Violet, a photographer is called to his funeral home to take a picture of a young, black man who dies. He parents cannot attend the funeral and want a picture. The picture inspires her to think she wants to do a series of young, dead, black men. Taking the pictures involve her in the death of a young man on Belle Isle. Bill helps her to get her subjects. However, the end of Bill is slightly ridiculous and Violet first response is crazy.
Like the book until the end. Although Detroit is in the title, not really much about Detroit.
Like the book until the end. Although Detroit is in the title, not really much about Detroit.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 24, 2016
Liked that it was set in Michigan and the subject was ok. Vi is a photographer trying to find something to shoot that will get her a show and sell some pictures. Her subject gets her into trouble with her boyfriend Bill, the police and friends. Quite a story.
August 28, 2016
This was one of the strangest books I've ever read. I originally picked it up because of the title and because I'm from Michigan. The pace and focus was odd, but fascinating. I was driven to finish it and I look forward to more from this author.
September 5, 2016
Gritty novel about life in Detroit. Quirky female protagonist who is a photographer on the edge of economic failure. Kept pulling me in.
September 15, 2016
A ruin-porn photographer takes on a new project to capture images of deceased men in Detroit. Intrigue and discourse on the ethics of the photographer's art ensue ...
September 21, 2016
Liked it, didn't love it. Wouldn't go out of my way to find her other stuff
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January 18, 2017An exciting and unique tale, particularly interesting to those with knowledge of the city of Detroit. Not for the squeamish.
January 29, 2017
This Edgar finalist didn't live up to its promise, IMHO. More here. https://litlunchbox.com/2017/01/28/ab...
January 7, 2025
Some thing about this just didn’t sit right with me. I feel like it was kind of all over the place just not for me.
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