Contemporary Authors

• Taconic Murda ( "Sam Free" mystery series) Moonshine Cove (Abbeville, SC), 2014

• Hunts Point - May 31, 2017 Perfect Crime Books,

• The Big Thrill - http://www.thebigthrill.org/2017/05/hunts-point-by-uriel-e-gribetz/

  Quoted in Sidelights: “They are honest and gruff and share an ironic sense of humor,” he said. “The other thing is our commitment to Bronx justice, which is different than the rest of the world’s view of justice. With Bronx justice, things get squared up in the end, even though not everyone may get what’s coming to them.”
  “Jonah, as a child, was nearly murdered by the Super’s helper in his building,” Gribetz told James. “That event shaped him. Jonah’s story is his quest to no longer be a victim of his circumstances. In fact, when Sam Free visits Jonah in prison, Jonah tells Sam that he refuses to be a victim anymore. The strength and resiliency of the human spirit is truly amazing, and I try to capture that with Jonah.”
  CRIME FICTION, LATEST BOOKS
  Hunts Point by Uriel E. Gribetz
  MAY 31, 2017 by ITW 0
  By Renee James

  Uriel E. Gribetz was born and raised in the Bronx, New York, and served nearly thirty years in the public defender’s office in that borough. He took up creative writing at the age of eighteen, at the Bennington Writers Workshop, and has published short stories and essays, along with two novels. His first novel, Taconic Murda, was released in 2014.

  HUNTS POINT, Gribetz’s new release, was actually the first book he worked on. Set in his beloved Bronx, the story revolves around a damaged hero named Sam Free who seeks justice for the weak, this time a young man called Jonah who is wrongfully convicted of a grisly murder. HUNTS POINT was released this April by Perfect Crime Books. The Big Thrill interviewed Gribetz about the novel.

  Your latest publication centers on a wrongful conviction. Tell us about the young man, and how your life as a public defender helped you create this character.

  Sometimes things happen to people that they have no control over and these events shape their lives. Recently I had a seven-year-old client whose mother’s boyfriend murdered his mother and his siblings. The client was stabbed fifteen times, but he survived. How do you get past something like that? I see horrible, awful things that happen to people, yet they are able to survive and go forward.

  In the book, Jonah, as a child, was nearly murdered by the Super’s helper in his building. That event shaped him. Jonah’s story is his quest to no longer be a victim of his circumstances. In fact, when Sam Free visits Jonah in prison, Jonah tells Sam that he refuses to be a victim anymore. The strength and resiliency of the human spirit is truly amazing, and I try to capture that with Jonah.

  HUNTS POINT is your second mystery/thriller starring Sam Free, a disgraced ex-cop. Tell us about him, and why he takes on this case.

  Sam Free became a cop because he wanted to help people, but he lost his way. In the first novel, Taconic Murda, his motives were in the right place, but his actions got him into trouble. In HUNTS POINT Sam has lost almost everything: his career and his marriage is on the rocks. He feels helpless, and at first he takes this case because of the money, but then he continues with it because working to free a wrongfully convicted man takes away Sam’s helplessness and gives him a sense of purpose.

  What parts of Sam Free’s character are extensions of you?

  His relentlessness. It took me thirty years to get someone to publish my first novel, but I never gave up because writing is my labor of love. I tend to be completely involved in whatever I am working on to the point of obsessiveness, which is not always healthy. Sam Free tends to be like that as well.

  HUNTS POINT and your first novel are set in the Bronx, a borough very few people outside New York ever see or even read about. What makes the Bronx a great setting for a thriller?

  It’s the people. They are honest and gruff and share an ironic sense of humor. The other thing is our commitment to Bronx justice, which is different than the rest of the world’s view of justice. With Bronx justice, things get squared up in the end, even though not everyone may get what’s coming to them.

  In the 1970s, large parts of the Bronx were devastated by poverty and crime. How has the area changed over the years?

  Growing up in the Bronx in the 1970s was amazing. Sure times were lean, but we had all the advantages of the cultural revolution of the 1960s. I studied English at Lehman College. It was fantastic. Those times were about joy, not violence. It was before crack and before guns. People weren’t fighting. When I graduated Lehman I took a job working with the multi-handicapped. I made $15,000 a year, and I could afford a large one bedroom on Pelham Parkway.

  Today that apartment is $1500 a month but people are still making what I made in 1985, and they can’t afford to pay the rent and buy food. Sure the Bronx is much cleaner. There are no more burning or abandoned buildings, but I think people are poorer. It’s also a more dangerous Bronx than I grew up in because street crime is more prevalent. The young people have little hope. The courts are trying to help. There are many more programs to help the young people and those with drug problems. The Bronx is a stone’s throw from Manhattan but really it is another world in terms of its poverty. The congressional district encompassing the South Bronx is one of the poorest in the country, and it’s in the shadows of the glamorous Yankee Stadium.

  Your cast of characters includes minorities. Talk about the challenge of creating minority characters as a white author, and what you do to avoid stereotypes and superficiality.

  My wife is from Puerto Rico, and I have had many Spanish friends, that’s why I think I can write about Spanish characters. Also growing up in the Bronx and working in the Bronx I am exposed to many different cultures. I think to write about black and brown characters is to understanding the cultural differences and influences. For example, young men of color get profiled by the police. If you are a young man of color driving a BMW, how many times do you think you will be stopped by the police as compared to a young white man? I think these are things you think about when writing characters.

  With any minority, you have to dig deep. I am the child of a holocaust survivor and to understand where I’m coming from you have to have some understanding of that. I am also first generation American on my mother’s side so that I relate to the emigrant/refugee sensibility as well.

  Why did you choose criminal law for a career, and why did you stay a public defender instead of going into private practice and making more money?

  People who are not lawyers don’t understand that most jobs in law are very boring. Imagine spending hours and hours reading and rereading lengthy contracts filled with arcane and difficult language. I’m not someone who can spend eight to twelve hours at a desk. I need to be up and about. Trial and court work are the most interesting. Criminal law never gets boring, there is always so much going on.

  Various books and movies over the years have suggested the practice of law for big-city public defenders is representing a constant progression of the worst people in our society. How do you feel about the people you’ve defended? Is it ever tough to sleep at night?

  The toughest case I ever had was a man who had killed his infant son and fed him to the dog. I wrote the appeal. Those pictures of the necropsy kept me up, especially at the time when my kids were very young.

  I tend to try to view my role as a defense lawyer very clinically. I try to focus my energy on the strengths and weaknesses of the case and the issues concerning that. I don’t want to know too much about my client’s life, too much about the victim, et cetera. That’s when things get messy. My job is to defend my client to the fullest extent of the law. The prosecutor’s job is to prosecute my client. I tend not to concentrate on the emotional stuff, but rather doing my job as an advocate. This is our system of justice, which works most of the time. Still, even after all that, the truth is that yes sometimes it is tough to sleep.

  And while there are many horrible stories of human depravity, most people are not evil. They need help. The root of all anti-social behavior can be traced to a lethal combination of mental illness with drug use or alcohol. Less than one percent of the accused are sadistic sociopaths.

  How did your writing evolve between the publication of Taconic Murda and HUNTS POINT?

  My characters have evolved. Sam Free is a character I could write for a very long time. I’ve gotten to know him as I have gotten to know the other characters in both books that tend to reappear in the stories.

  What’s next for Uriel Gribetz?

  I’d like to do some more short fiction and play around with styles. Recently I wrote a piece called “Would you plead guilty to a crime you didn’t commit to stay out of jail?” in second person. I’d like to try to do some more short fiction in that style. I am currently well along in the next Sam Free novel, 1275 Webster, about a seemingly accidental shooting of a civilian by a cop that really isn’t an accident. In this story I am alternating point of views. I think as I write more and more, I am able to experiment more and take more risks. I also want to change the scene in future Sam Free novels. I want to set the fourth novel in Puerto Rico.

  *****

  Uriel E. Gribetz, who was raised in the Bronx, is the author of a previous Sam Free novel, Taconic Murda. He has been defending the rights of the indigent accused of crimes since 1988, first as a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society Criminal Defense Division in Bronx County and since 1991 as a member of the Assigned Counsel Plan in First Department. He lives in White Plains, N.Y. with his wife and two grown children and two dogs. He is at work on the next Sam Free novel.

• Do Some Damage - http://www.dosomedamage.com/2017/09/uriel-e-gribetz-hunts-point-q.html

  Quoted in Sidelights: “I want my reader to identify with Sam’s struggles in a universal way,” Gribetz said. “He is everyman/woman.”
  “The book isn’t a retread of the first, and Sam Free has been allowed to move and change,” he observed. “That’s a good thing for the reader, but a bad thing for the character. Sam’s life has fallen apart, and he carries the damage from the choices made in the first book.”
  “twists and surprises to constantly turn up the heat on our protagonist.”
  Thursday, September 7, 2017
  Uriel E. Gribetz - Hunts Point - Q&A
  By Jay Stringer

  Hunts Point is the second book in the Sam Free series, following hardboiled on the heels of 2014's Taconic Murda. The first novel introduced Sam as a flawed detective, trying to hold on to some integrity in a police force, and criminal justice system, that pushes people to cheat and compromise. Gribetz showed a strong grasp of what makes hardboiled fiction work, with tense scenes, fast pacing, and dialogue that feels authentic.

  With Hunts Point, Gribetz made a decision I really appreciated as a reader. He didn't stand still. The book isn't a retread of the first, and Sam Free has been allowed to move and change. That's a good thing for the reader, but a bad thing for the character. Sam's life has fallen apart, and he carries the damage from the choices made in the first book. Sam is no longer a cop, which moves the series from semi-police procedural, to straight-up PI.

  Sam is hired to investigate a murder, but there's a key difference. The 'killer' has already been found, and Sam's job is to prove him innocent. From this start, Gribetz doesn't hold back in piling more misery onto his character, throwing in twists and surprises to constantly turn up the heat on our protagonist.

  To celebrate the release of Hunts Point, I kicked everybody out of the DSD clubhouse for an hour, to have a quick chat with Uriel E. Gribetz.

  JS: Sam Free fits very much into the hardboiled tradition of damaged heroes. Characters who try to do well, but they have something in themselves that’s just as broken as the world they see around them.

  UG: I think these characters resonate with us because all of our lives are such a struggle. No matter how much we may have in each and every one of us there is strife. I want my reader to identify with Sam’s struggles in a universal way. He is everyman/woman. I think of myself as a reader. What do I like to read? Is there no better feeling in the world to pick up a book and become literally mesmerized. I strive for this. I want the reader to be entertained most of all, and I think readers are entertained by watching others struggle. It’s sort of like looking into another person’s life-another’s fish bowl, but I don’t think struggle in one’s life is despair there is growth and beauty to the process. Truth is beauty, beauty truth. That’s why I think we, who live in a broken world, can relate to Sam’s struggles. That’s why crime fiction is universal in its appeal to everyone because it captures the human condition in a way that the reader can relate to.

  JS: Two books into a series, what lessons have you learned about building a lead character?

  UG: What I’ve learned is how important it is to develop the characters around the lead character. I call them my players. It’s my crew that appear and reappear throughout the Sam Free series. There is Celeste Santiago the Assistant District Attorney. David Gold the defense attorney, who rents a store front from an old Bronx power broker named Feldman. Celeste Santiago and David Gold were romantically involved. There is McBride and Ryan the thug cops built like lineman. In the next Sam Free novel, Frank Cortez, reappears. Cortez was Sam’s old partner when he was on the job. The stories of these players and their interaction with each other fuels the development of the lead character and, of course the story. Sure you dig deeper and deeper into your lead character the more you write about him. It’s an evolving process. Sometimes I don’t know what Sam may do in a particular scene until I start writing it. The more I know a character the more freedom I have with the character.

  JS: The book, and character, is very firmly rooted in the Bronx. Hell’s Kitchen had Matt Scudder, Brooklyn had Moe Prager. Is there something specific to the Bronx that you hope to get across to readers?

  In the Bronx the bad guy doesn’t always get caught and go to jail. They do sometimes get away with doing bad things. It’s a different type of morality. Do people get what they got coming to them? Absolutely, but in a different kind of way and not always in the way that’s expected. Hunts Point ends that way. I call it Bronx Justice.

  JS: That’s a book title, right there. The plot starts with a question of a wrongful conviction. A sense of corruption and injustice seems to inform the whole book. Do you think Crime fiction is the best vehicle for addressing these issues?

  UG: I think so. Corruption and injustice are rampant, and the people who are corrupt get away with it. It’s not always black and white. There is always a grey area. There are certain people that run the show. They are the power elite and they do pretty much as they please. We see it every day. Isn’t it true that if you are accused of a crime and you have unlimited resources to spend you can beat the crime not matter how guilty you are? If you’re rich enough you can get away with anything? Isn’t that injustice?

  JS: How much of the plot comes from your own background as a public defender?

  UG: I guess when you have worked in the criminal justice system for along as I have you realize that there are certain people of power that you really don’t want to mess with. These are the people who really don’t want them to know your name. I believe if someone in power was really out to get you they could. I have seen it happen. That’s why I prefer to blend in and not stand out from the crowd so that I’m noticed.

  JS: Do you think that background makes you see a crime novel in a different way to writers who’ve never walked the walk?

  UG: I’ve seen the true darkness of the human spirit both in what one human being afflicts on another and the suffering that people experience. It has changed me. I think that this in my writing.

  JS: What was the biggest challenge for you writing this second book, and how do you overcome it?

  UG: It’s ironic but I wrote Hunts Point, the second Sam Free novel, first. After I finished Hunts Point, I wrote Taconic Murda, my first novel. After I finished Taconic I went back to Hunts and wrote it from the point of view of Sam Free. My next Sam Free novel titled 1275 Webster I wrote quite some time ago as well. Now I am going back to it. I tend to write like that. I’ll finish something and put it aside and then go back to it. Sometimes getting distance from a piece gives me more objectivity in the revision process.

  JS: The book moves pretty fast. You have a good sense of when to throw twists at the reader, and you stack them up in a way that keeps us guessing. What are your influences in crime fiction? If books weren’t shelved alphabetically, which other authors would you want the Sam free books to sit next to?

  UG: Elmore Leonard comes to mind. His noir style is a big influence. I’m always reading. The more I read the more in awe I am of how many talented crime writers there are. I think the style of the crime novel continues to evolve to adapt to the fast paced world we live in. We live in age of instant gratification. With the internet everything is at our finger tips so the crime novel has to be quicker paced to keep up with it all to hold the reader’s attention. Recently I have been reading Max Allan Collins and Robert Crais and I marvel at their writing.

  In the end it’s Ed McBain and the 87th Precinct mysteries. I think I have read most of them. The way McBain intertwines his characters lives with the plot line of the story is what I aspire to. What a great story teller he is.

Quoted in Sidelights: “unrealistic,” saying: “A series of narrow escapes and improbable action sequences build to a cliched climax.”
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Print Marked Items
Hunts Point
Publishers Weekly.
264.14 (Apr. 3, 2017): p56+.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text: 
Hunts Point
Uriel E. Gribetz. Perfect Crime, $13 trade paper (202p) ISBN 978-1-935797-73-9
Gribetz's unrealistic second novel featuring New York City PI Sam Free (after 2014's Taconic
Murda) presents a familiar setup: an investigator who left the police force under a cloud agrees
to look into the case of a convicted killer and finds that the truth is connected to an elaborate
conspiracy. Sam is approached by a bar acquaintance, Morris Ninver, who begs the former
homicide cop to reexamine the evidence against his son, Jonah, who's serving a 25-years-to-life
sentence for murdering a prostitute. Jonah, who worked unloading trucks in Hunts Point in the
Bronx, claims that he fell asleep after having sex with the victim. When he woke up, he saw a
man in a ski mask repeatedly stabbing her in the back. The killer gave Jonah the bloody knife
and asked the frightened kid to stab him as well. Then he laughed and took off. The suspect later
conceded that his story made no sense; Sam comes to believe that Jonah's attorney didn't provide
him with an adequate defense. A series of narrow escapes and improbable action sequences
build to a cliched climax. (June)
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Hunts Point." Publishers Weekly, 3 Apr. 2017, p. 56+. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A489813711/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=49e40821. Accessed 25 Dec. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A489813711