Brooklyn Motto
Fans of Richard Price, Charlie Huston, and Jonathan Lethem will love this coming-of-age New York-centric detective noir debut from esteemed filmmaker and screenwriter Alex R. Johnson.
New York City, 1998. New York is changing around Nico Kelly, and he can feel more coming.
A private investigator and self-proclaimed photographer, Nico is stuck in a loop of city contracts and self loathing. What little middle class there was is disappearing—long-standing factories are moving out and taking their reliable neighborhood jobs with them, and Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s police force has the streets in a stranglehold.
Nico spends his days looking for fraudsters while taking photos of municipal employees on disability claims. He spends his nights trying to get rid of the nagging feeling that his day job makes him a professional snitch—traversing dive bars, playing pinball, and fighting through the haze of hungover mornings and blurry evenings.
Pushing thirty years old and feeling split between his American and Latin heritage, between youth and adulthood, Nico finds himself at a precipice—who is he and what should he become?
When Nico witnesses and records a murder during one of his insurance fraud investigations, bodies start to turn up all around him and he’s forced into solving a mystery he didn’t ask to solve. Humorous, gritty, and real, Nico’s search for what it means to be human takes him through the deepest and darkest parts of New York City.
These book club questions are from The Future Of Agency.
Book club questions for Brooklyn Motto by Alex R Johnson
Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.
The book opens with Nico sharing how his late father has influenced him in many ways, including how he notices and remembers things, as well as how he appreciates film and music. Throughout the book, how do you see this come into play? What does Nico’s father’s apartment represent to Nico?
How do Finch and Nico know each other? How do Wally and Nico know each other? How does Nico become involved in Finch’s death?
Oftentimes Nico will find himself at a New York City bar to cope with what’s going on in his life—whether that be dealing with the grief from his father’s death, his unstable employment and housing, or his relationships. How does Nico’s consistent presence in New York City bars affect the plot?
“It’s French Connection time.” Throughout the book, there are many references to different movies and films. What does film mean to Nico and his father? How does film influence how Nico interprets his life in New York City?
Setting in Brooklyn Motto makes its appearance just as often as any character might. How does the setting of late 1990s New York contribute to the atmosphere of the novel? What would have been different if Nico’s story took place in a different era?
Who is Cookie in relation to Nico? Why does Cookie not trust Nico at first in sharing about Katie?
Why does Nico become involved in solving Katie’s murder?
How did Nico’s parents’ relationship and Nico’s family relationships influence how he sees himself?
What does Maggie’s bar hopping plan say about her? What does Nico’s response to Maggie’s bar hopping plan say about him?
How does Nico determine whether or not he can trust other people, like Cookie, Finch, Detective Hong, Maggie, Frankie, Wally, etc.? Does he truly trust other people?
“The corruption is always gonna be there. But the perception of the corruption, that’s the big bad.” Do you agree with this assessment? Why or why not?
Do you think Nico gets closure for Finch and Katie’s deaths? Why or why not?
“You can either fight the current, or steer through it.” Throughout the book, Nico teeters on the precipice of “doing the right thing,” while making his own mistakes. By the end of the book, you see Nico have a strong sense of justice especially for his father, Finch, Katie, and the treatment of others. What does justice and moral good mean to Nico by the end of the book? How has that changed from the Nico at the beginning of the book?
What relationship did you have to New York City prior to reading the book? How does the New York City represented in the book impact your own experience with New York (the good, bad, magical, and dirty)?
Brooklyn Motto Book Club Questions PDF
Click here for a printable PDF of the Brooklyn Motto discussion questions
"Brooklyn Motto is a stylish, propulsive mystery that beautifully captures late 90s New York City in the convulsions of enormous social and economic change. Alex Johnson combines novelistic texture with cinematic pace to great effect, and narrator Nico Kelly is the perfect guide to this world full of danger, corruption, and also hope." - Sam Lipsyte, author of No One Left to Come Looking for You
"Alex R. Johnson's playful, witty, brooding, and heartfelt Brooklyn Motto is everything readers of classic private detective fiction could want - but placed in the nothing-like-classic East Village and Brooklyn of 1998. Brimming with distinctive characters, clever language, and crisp observations, the book is a thoroughly engaging and deeply satisfying read. I tore through it and had a lot of fun." - Evan Handler, actor; author of Time On Fire: A Comedy of Terrors and It's Only Temporary: The Good News and the Bad News of Being Alive
"[Brooklyn Motto] is an inventive hard-boiled mash-up starring a reluctant GenX PI who accidentally finds himself in way over his head. His backstory and future relies on a complicated extended family and their immigrant Brooklyn culture. A love letter to NYC & detective fiction." - John Doe (X), musician, actor and author of Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk and More Fun in the New World: The Unmaking and Legacy of L.A. Punk