The Shape of Dreams by April Reynolds

After detailing the horrific murder of a twelve-year-old child in East Harlem, the reader may believe that the tension is lightened and that this novel will revert to the traditional murder mystery genre. Nothing could be further from the truth. The horror and tension are unrelieved in this story, going from worse to even worse. The street life of East Harlem in the ’80’s is a main character in this book, with all the unremitting grittiness of the impoverished and hopeless lives of the residents. When the grieving mother runs to the police station for help in finding her son, the curt dismissals of her anguish leave the reader feeling a deep sense of shame that this is the reality for ghetto citizens in the United States. The author is gifted in bringing the reader into the story as a witness to the unequal justice, or even lack of it, that is a given in this neighborhood. This is a deeply unbearable story.