The high-concept description of Motherless Brooklyn is that it's a detective novel where the detective has Tourette's syndrome, and it's a strong novel for as long as it stays true to this concept. Unfortunately, it spends over a third of its pages on set up -- the story of the murder victim Frank Minna and the four orphans he takes under his wing -- and the set up lacks verisimilitude and character development. The resolution to the mystery is a bit outlandish too, but that's par for the course with detective novels.
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