A fast-paced thriller perfect for readers of Kathy Reichs and Linda Fairstein, Richard Hilary Weber’s first Brooklyn Crimes short novel follows dedicated cop Flo Ott as she unravels the mystery of a terrifying mass murder—from the cold underbelly of New York to the city’s glittering heights.
Beneath Brooklyn’s wintry streets, seven people are dead, slumped in their seats on an F train. Fast thinking and good fortune prevent the subway car doors from opening, spilling poisonous gas into the station. It’s not long before a frightened metropolis of eight million demands answers: If this was an act of terror, where will these cruel killers strike next?
NYPD detective Flo Ott looks closely at the victims. Each of their stories leads to another, one more colorful and complex than the last. A few of these quintessential New Yorkers catch Flo’s attention: a mysterious off-duty FBI agent and the beautiful woman next to him, who may have been his lover. Then there’s a Russian mobster with more than his fair share of enemies.
As Flo battles false leads, conflicting witnesses, and meddling politicians, her investigation delves into the dark side of the city that never sleeps. Flo becomes convinced that this wasn’t a random act of violence, and she fears something much worse may be rumbling down the tracks.
Release date:
June 23, 2015
Publisher:
Alibi
Print pages:
180
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Taking the F train subway, a traveler can arrive in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York, and get off at Fifteenth Street–Prospect Park, thinking he’ll walk upstairs and find himself in a fashionable brownstone neighborhood.
But if he takes a wrong turn and climbs a different staircase, he’ll discover Windsor Terrace, an enclave in a time warp, a more ordinary place, still home to some police and firefighters, sanitation workers, bus drivers and subway motormen, steeplejacks and city clerks. The salt, not the sugar, of New York.
Former FBI special agent Raymond O’Hara, long retired, made no mistake when he left the subway station, ten at night, and strolled into Windsor Terrace.
Destination: Farrell’s bar.
Almost the last of the old Brooklyn Irish saloons, Farrell’s was a few well-sited steps from Holy Name Roman Catholic Church. In front of the church, a beggar stopped Raymond, and Raymond handed the man a dollar before entering the tavern.
“Any good baddies?” Raymond aimed his remark at Brendan Ryan, whose back—stubbornly, defiantly—was turned to the only two women at the bar, Ryan’s eyes listlessly scanning the afternoon’s New York Post.
Front-page headline: VEEP NAMES TRAITOR DEMS.
Ryan folded the paper and tossed it on the bar.
“Same old.”
“Brendan, see that guy out there by the church?”
Raymond nodded at the bar window and the man standing alone on the corner in front of the church. “Guy hit me up for a buck. First time it’s ever happened to me around here.”
“Got me, too. Broke my heart. Guy used to come in here, a regular at the bar. So I gave him the buck. Used to be, someone said ‘I’m hungry, pal, can you spare something?’ you told him ‘Get a job. Go to work.’ Not no more. Say, how’s your granddaughter?”
“Terrific, thanks,” Raymond said. “Bouncing back, chicken pox can’t lick her. She’s got the O’Hara constitution. We walked the dog tonight, and you won’t believe what she says. ‘Got your gun, Grandpa?’”
“How come?”
“Kids.” Raymond shrugged. “They got kids scared, crap they hear on TV, in school.”
“Hey, let me tell you something, I wouldn’t mind having mine back. My wife and me, both ex-Bureau, so you’d think they’d at least let us share one. This is New York, right, not Virginia, not some crazy place. I’d feel a lot better. Even if I only ever got to use it once.”
“For what?” Raymond said.
“A Sicilian.”
“Mob?”
“No such luck. Jerk smuggling salamis, no DOA license. Guy had a warehouse full of meat, just off Court Street. Pulls a knife on me. He lost a kidney.”
“Good salamis?”
“Best, if you go for garlic. Really, you don’t miss a weapon?”
“Nothing happens. C’mon, life’s good. It’s like embassy duty, retired.”
“Tell me about it, I always wanted embassy work. See the world, sock away the allowance. Brussels, I was hoping for, supposed to have the world’s best beers. Figured I’d get it for being a good boy, couple of years left in the Bureau, last post before retirement. No f***ing way.”
“What happened?”
“Clinton’s what happened. I spent two years in Little Rock, drilling barflies.”
“They got beer in Little Rock,” said Raymond.
“And more bimbos than Vegas. They don’t even speak English. Listen to that drawl for two years? Coming back to Brooklyn, believe me, Ray, like going to heaven.”
“Find any there?”
“Any what—”
“Bimbos who blew Clinton.”
“You kidding? They all did, you listen to them. Every one of them thought they’d get retirement money, swearing they knelt before the commander in chief. ‘On a stack of Bibles, Officer, he’s got a wart on it, left side.’ So much bullshit, I couldn’t wait to get back to New York. Meantime, camel jockeys are planning the Towers. So Bush gets in, then what? Same old. Who listens to us? Bush sure as shit didn’t. They got the Bureau drilling tourists, for Chrissakes. F***ing waste. Glad you’re retired? I sure as hell am.”
“No argument from me. Another round?”
The bartender brought Raymond O’Hara and Brendan Ryan two glasses of draft beer.
“And a couple of balls with that,” Raymond said. “What the hell, retirement, right. Just a drop. But you know, I don’t blame the Bureau, I don’t hate them.”
“Of course not, me neither. I’m grateful. People who hate? My experience, Ray, they’re f***-ups. Hate puts you in as much crap as too much loving. Prudence, all that kind of stuff we used to get. The nuns and brothers were right. That’s what I miss now. Prudence.”
The bartender filled two shot glasses with Tullamore Dew.
Raymond lifted his. “To retirement.”
“No shit.”
They knocked back the whiskey, and returned to sipping beer. And so the night rolled on, beers, wee drops, heads shaking.
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