As they’re closing down RJ’s Taproom after another routine night, co-owner Randall Low and waitress/dancer Cindy Kaczorek are shot to death. Their killer escapes without touching the cash register, leaving the Paterson Police Department to wonder whether something interrupted a planned robbery or the motive was something entirely different. Sgt. Gregg Bachman, who’s been handed the case, calls on Officer Jamie Palmieri to help out. Jamie’s job is to tag along on interviews, take careful notes, and keep a sharp eye out for anything Bachman might miss. After three years working patrol shifts, Jamie jumps at the chance to stretch his wings, and he proves his value by picking up the clues that lead to further witnesses. But none of them, from Connie De Carlo, Cindy’s high school drama teacher, to Sandy Santasiera, Cindy’s best friend, can explain why Cindy was shot before Randall Low. The most likely suspect—Cindy’s boyfriend, Brad Rogan—was in jail at the time of the shooting. And the apparently unrelated murder of Drew Steinle demands investigation by a unit that’s already overworked. The killer, who knows better than Jamie that the walls are closing in on him, follows the officer’s flashy car around and tracks him to the house his Aunt Ro left him, where he plans an attack on Jamie and Missy Hollum, the bar pickup he’s taken under his roof. The mystery isn’t that mysterious, but debut novelist Anagnos sweats so many procedural details of Jamie’s painstaking investigation that you’ll sweat along with him.
