Shooting at Midnight by Greg Rucka begins not with the author’s compelling character Atticus Kodiak, but with the bodyguard’s sometime lover, Bridgett Logan. This New York cop’s daughter is a streetwise investigator and recovering addict with a sense of justice and a weakness for drugs. Bridgett is asked to honor a promise made years ago to Lisa Schoof, a fellow down-and-out teenager. But the pledge to help protect her from an abusive ex-lover gets twisted. Lisa wants to murder Vince Lark.
Within hours, Lark has been killed in a shooting gallery, Lisa refuses to speak in her own defense, and Bridgett realizes that her father’s service revolver is missing. Bridgett must risk her life to learn the circumstances of the murder. The investigation exacts horrendous sacrifice, and Atticus is delivered a mysterious summons. To tell more would ruin this gritty novel’s true-to-life suspense.
Tom Corcoran is the Florida-based author of The Mango Opera and the new Florida Keys mystery, Gumbo Limbo, both from St. Martin’s.
