A Relative Act of Murder

Special 30th Anniversary Edition featuring a new foreword from the author. Novice reporter Kate Murray is determined to make a career for herself covering crime for a New York City tabloid. But after she botches a big murder story- writing that the victim was a Harvard-bound undergraduate instead of a notorious crack dealer- her bosses give her six months to redeem herself. Kate scrutinizes the police activity reports on a Sunday morning, searching among the Saturday-night homicides for a victim the public will care about. She finds one. Margaret Severing, a hard-working nurse, is inexplicably shot to death in the lobby of her building in Bushwick, and Kate is determined to beat everyone- including the cops- to the story. Her investigation leads her to two men. Detective John Finn, who has just had a close scrape with death, decides that Kate is his last chance at love. Dominick Donatti, a brooding psychopath and the only witness to the nurse's murder, sees Kate as his ticket out of the neighborhood.…