Publisher's Weekly
The mean streets of New York City and the NYPD at work are convincingly portrayed in O'Donnell's ( A Wreath for the Bride ) latest entry in the Lt. Norah Mulcahaney series. When a sniper firing into a crowded East Side flea market kills a teenage mother and a baby, Norah and her homicide team are assigned to the case, which has sparked public outrage. Norah quickly discovers that the gunfire had indeed been aimed at the victims and that the girl had been using the baby carriage to transport cocaine. The drug link leads to a distraught and vengeful mother, a drug middleman and, somewhat improbably, to a congressman running for the Senate. The case hits close to home when a missing piece of evidence implicates Norah's trusted sergeant and when her lover, TV newsman Randall Tye, who is conducting his own investigation and with whom she has quarreled about their conflicting careers, disappears. O'Donnell's knowledge of police procedure compensates for her undistinguished Norah, occasionally the ''ice queen'' of Randall's accusations, is a strong, determined woman holding her own in a male-dominated police force.

Genre: Mystery