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Detective first grade Jane Bauer and her cold case team of Gordon Dafino and Sean MacHovec are assigned to the case of Anderson Stratton by their captain. Eight years earlier, Stratton was found dead in his room near Tomkins Square Park in the part of New York City called Alphabet City (Avenues A, B, and C in the southern part of Manhattan). Stratton was a schizophrenic who was functional when he took his medication, but he had been found seated in a chair, facing the window, with a partially-drunk bottle of spring water nearby. The autopsy showed Anderson Stratton had starved to death. It was ruled a suicide. No note was ever found. Stratton's well-connected sister Flavia Constantine has never accepted the coroner's verdict. She insists that her brother would never have starved himself to death, nor would he have stopped taking his medication for such a long time. She had gone off to Europe on a holiday about a month before his body was found, depending on Social Services to take care of him while she was away. Jane and her crew investigate. They find the building superintendent is the same although, as with most of New York, the building itself has been yuppified. The deeper they dig into Anderson's death, the more they are convinced it was suicide, but during the investigation, they discover another unsolved cold case. Eventually, the cases come together and Flavia Constantine begins to accept her part in her brother's death. Cold cases seem to be the flavor of the month in the mystery community lately, but this series has the extra attraction of a New York City setting and well-rounded characters. The first book in the series was MURDER IN HELL'S KITCHEN. (Can't wait for The Sutton Place Slayings).
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, December 2004
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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