Elias’s novel, a riveting psychological thriller, has a laudable agenda. In the midst of the chaotic mayhem of societal and political turmoil that engulfs us, there are those able to illuminate through the gloom, serve up and illustrate all the consummate lies and misinterpretations. Michael Elias, thankfully, is one of those enlightened souls. A guiding light through the doom. We should be grateful for his insight, for his contemplation, for his wrestling match with morality. For a writer’s need to illustrate and communicate. It could not have been an easy choice in these charged times for a white male writer to undertake to write from a female point of view ... Elias has pulled it off ... The voice of his protagonist is immediate, irreverent, on point, and most assuredly a fully developed, engaging, sardonic entity unto itself. You Can Go Home Now is a narrative with muscle, focusing on abuse, humiliation, retribution, revenge. For those of us who love thrillers, who love voice, atmosphere, psychological wrestling matches, Elias delivers. His novel is engaging, calculating, to the point ... masterfully plotted, astutely conceived.
Equal parts police procedural and psychological thriller, Michael Elias’s You Can Go Home Now is an intriguing experiment with genre and form. ... Coming in at under 300 pages, this relatively short page-turner of a novel arrives at an interesting time in the American public’s relationship with our police forces. Mr. Elias is unafraid to show the underside of American policing, displaying how a system that attracts bullies and entrenches chauvinism can harden and coarsen even the best-intentioned applicants. Nina herself is a flawed protagonist who has to tackle the question of advancing what she knows is right versus what she knows is ethical—as well as consider what she owes to a society that too often fails its most vulnerable. You Can Go Home Now is a timely meditation on justice and retribution that will long stay in the memory, in no small part due to its moral complexity.
A smart, and very relevant, mystery by a prolific writer of stage and screen, Michael Elias’s You Can Go Home Now will take you on an intense rollercoaster ride alongside Detective Nina Karim, a homicide investigator in Queens, New York ... With recurring themes of revenge, justice, power, and victimhood, there are frank and graphic discussions of domestic violence situations that might be too much for sensitive readers. They certainly do pack a punch if you will pardon the metaphor ... The incredibly sharp dialogue and such murky ethical questions will keep readers turning page after page. It is not a story full of likeable characters, but it is a story full of very real characters. The themes will work themselves into your brain and not let you go, not to mention the incredible climax that you simply will not see coming!
In a rousing climax, Elias...deftly ties together the plot threads of Nina’s personal quest and her current assignment. A compulsively readable thriller that could take Elias to another level of acclaim.
A few women at the shelter have stories that feel clichéd, like the Pakistani woman who’s threatened with an honor killing, but overall Elias does a good job of conveying a painful reality. This is for anyone who doesn’t mind their heroes acting in the gray areas to see justice done.
