3 Quarters — Denis Hamill

Explosive, street-savvy, and authentic, acclaimed columnist Denis Hamill's novels are drawn in the gritty ink that can only flow from the pen of a native New Yorker...and a superbly talented writer.
Now, blending sinuous prose with a hair-trigger delivery, Hamill etches a novel set in a mercenary New York -- where friends become enemies, cops are corrupted, and some must die, all for the sake of Bobby Emmet was a desperate man, an honest New York City cop, framed for the murder of his fiancée, and given one last chance to save himself -- by an unlikely benefactor. Bobby didn't murder his fiancee, Dorothea Dubrow, and then cremate the body -- but he has an idea who is responsible. His murder trial interrupted his investigation of a police medical pension scam -- and revealed how little he really knew about Dorothea. Now suddenly free, he is imprisoned in a web of corruption, lies, and the kind of secrets people kill for.
Beginning his search for the truth at a shady security firm that employs able-bodied ex-cops, all of whom have mysteriously qualified for medical pensions -- equal to a cool three-quarters of their salaries -- he stumbles upon a startling discovery: the cremated remains that led to his conviction didn't really belong to Dorothea.
Bobby has a few allies: his policeman brother, his hacker daughter, his flamboyantly unprincipled lawyer, a cop or two who stood by him through the trial. But the same forces that landed him in jail more than a year before are putting a smothering squeeze on him now -- and all roads lead to a powerful politician who will let nothing get between himself and the governor's mansion.
As the struggle to find the truth -- and Dorothea -- intensifies, Bobby begins to suspect that those around him are not as loyal as they appear. His liberty and very life depend on whether or not he can discover how high -- and how near -- the conspiracy goes before the trap closes on him.
At once lyrical and riveting, Three Quarters crackles in its electric setting, reverberating with a "relentless energy" (Lawrence Block) fueled by Hamill's intimate knowledge of and intense passion for New York City.