A Deadly Primary

It is the year 2000, the start of the new Millennium, and Christine Ferrier, more confident now after her escape from a near death encounter the previous Spring, is positive that she has reached the turning point in her plan to build a safe and secure life in brownstone Brooklyn for herself and her two children. Sipping champagne, surrounded by friends and family at the gala New Year's celebration at The Breakers in Newport, the future looks bright and the opportunities limitless. She...
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It is the year 2000, the start of the new Millennium, and Christine Ferrier, more confident now after her escape from a near death encounter the previous Spring, is positive that she has reached the turning point in her plan to build a safe and secure life in brownstone Brooklyn for herself and her two children. Sipping champagne, surrounded by friends and family at the gala New Year's celebration at The Breakers in Newport, the future looks bright and the opportunities limitless. She has signed on as a volunteer in her neighbor, Democrat Emily Goodman's primary campaign for Congress. She intends to double her efforts to complete her graduate studies to eventually achieve her dream of becoming an architect. She will be more outgoing, finally able to participate in her community. Then, on Cliff Walk, just as the fireworks end, she discovers the body of a young woman, brutally beaten and strangled. The 21st Century was not supposed to start this way. Despite Christine's insistence that the unidentified victim is not their responsibility, her father is already claiming to have seen the murderer and to have recognized his Brooklyn accent. He insists on informing her tenant, former Detective Frank Otaviano. In the weeks that follow this is only the initial distraction. Frank's wife, quintessential homebody, Tessa, has discovered that the original owner of their brownstone had been charged with three murders. She announces her intention of proving his innocence and, of course, Christine's help is expected in solving the one hundred year old case. On the political front. her brother Eric's 'best buds' Drew Townsend and Pudge Wainwright are candidate and manager in the Republican campaign for the same Congressional seat. A bearded, homeless man has now taken claim to the park bench opposite her house and strangers call her by name. Her attempts to join more in the life of her community soon embroil Christine in the controversy over a vicious dog-fighting ring that may be threatening the neighborhood, but it takes the return of enigmatic Detective Grady Thorne to upset her carefully maintained balance and reawaken emotions she believed long dead. Exhilarated, Christine has little time to savor the moment. Her father's prediction proves true, and the tentacles of the Newport murder reach down to Park Slope and begin to slowly envelop her. More killings follow and Christine finds herself drawn in deeper and deeper until she has become the target of a stone cold killer.