As twenty-year NYPD veteran Joe Rizzo edges closer to retirement, things only seem to get harder: a new partner, a promise to his wife to quit smoking, and the most baffling case of his career--a murder investigation. The victim, Robert Lauria, was practically a hermit and was dead ten days before anyone found him. Fired from his job as a shoe salesman weeks ago, he rarely left his apartment and had no visitors except his cousin, who says she hardly knew him. So who strangled him late one night as he made tea in his kitchen? And could there be a connection to the headline-grabbing murder of a Broadway producer a day earlier? Armed with more street smarts than the FBI agents assigned to the more glamorous case, Rizzo and his new partner, Priscilla Jackson, are tasked with navigating the twin labyrinths of the case and NYPD politics in order to find the killer and bring him to justice. Full of the sounds and sights of walking the beat in Bensonhurst, Rizzo's Fire comes on the heels of Lou Manfredo's acclaimed debut, Rizzo's War , and brings the streets of Brooklyn to life in a way that no New York City crime novel has before. Rizzo's Fire is a Kirkus Reviews Best of 2011 Mysteries title.