Airtight

December 17, 2012
Lt. Luke Somers, of the New Jersey State Police, faces a critical deadline in this solid stand-alone from Edgar-finalist Rosenfelt (Heart of a Killer). When an anonymous tip names drug addict Steven Gallagher as the killer of Judge Daniel Brennan, who was about to sentence Steven in court, Somers confronts Steven and winds up shooting him in self-defense. Steven’s Marine brother, Chris, tells Somers he has one week to clear Steven’s name and find Brennan’s real killer, or else Chris will kill Somers’s brother, whom he has kidnapped. Somers’s desperate search for another explanation for Brennan’s murder takes him to Brayton, a town bitterly divided by a lawsuit over a plan to extract natural gas by fracking, with a major landowner in favor and the mayor against. Somers may be forced to cross ethical lines to save or avenge his brother. Rosenfelt’s cat-and-mouse game doesn’t rank high on the thrill meter, but Somers is a protagonist with series potential. Author tour. Agent: Robin Rue, Writers House.

May 27, 2013
New Jersey cop Luke Somers, the first-person narrator of Rosenfelt’s new stand-alone, is thoroughly professional on the job, but hapless and a little goofy when it comes to personal matters. As Luke describes his workday, explaining that he’s been placed in charge of the investigation of the murder of a local judge, narrator Jeff Steitzer’s mellifluous voice registers slight sarcasm and cool efficiency. But as the novel progresses—with Luke fatally shooting the main suspect, an addled-but-armed drug addict named Steven Gallagher, and Luke incurring the wrath of Gallagher’s brother Chris, whose military experience has turned him into a one-man killing machine—Steitzer follows the author’s lead and ratchets up the intensity. Along the way, he provides appropriate voices for a relatively small cast of characters, the most notable being Chris Gallagher. It’s a dispassionate but chilling whisper that leaves no doubt that the man means business. A Minotaur hardcover.