by Harry Brandt
First published 2015
Billy Graves works the Manhattan Night Watch, handling felonies that occur after midnight from Wall Street to Harlem. His unit usually just processes crime scenes for the day shift, but a four a.m. fatal slashing at Penn Station pulls him deeper into an investigation. The victim was once a suspect in the brutal murder of a twelve-year-old boy, a case connected to Billy's former colleagues in the Wild Geese, an aggressive anti-crime unit from the South Bronx. Years earlier, Billy accidentally shot a ten-year-old child while fighting an angel-dusted suspect, destroying his career trajectory and earning him a reputation as a loose cannon. Now in his early forties, he has found stability with Night Watch after years of dead-end assignments. But this new case drags his past back into his present, threatening the friendships he forged during his time in the urban trenches and putting his family at risk as old enemies resurface.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, detective
Vibes: dark, emotional, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Harlem, Manhattan, Penn Station, South Bronx, Wall Street
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
333 pages · Hardcover · Henry Holt and Co.
Content warnings: violence