Rizzo's Fire — Lou Manfredo

Lou Manfredos acclaimed debut novel, Rizzos War, brought the streets of Brooklyn to life in a way that no New York City crime novel has beforefull of the details, the sounds, the sights of walking a beat in Bensonhurst. Now in Rizzos Fire, as twenty-year veteran Joe Rizzo edges closer to retirement, things only seem to get harder: having promised his wife hed quit smoking, hes working the most baffling case of his career, with a new partner to boot.

Robert Lauria was practically a hermit, and was dead ten days before anyone found him. Fired from his job as a shoe salesman weeks ago, he rarely left his apartment and had no visitors except his cousin, who says she hardly knew him. So who strangled him late one night as he made tea in the kitchen in his pajamas? And could there be a connection to the headline-grabbing murder of a Broadway producer a day earlier? Rizzo and his new partner, Priscilla Jackson, carefully comb through the life of this forgotten man, even though the case has already been put on the back burner by their superiors. And what they find will surprise everyone.

Armed with more street smarts than the FBI agents assigned to the more glamorous case, Rizzo and his new partner Priscilla Jackson are tasked with navigating the twin labyrinths of the truth and NYPD politics in order to find the killer and bring him to justice.