This image is the cover for the book Dancer in the Flames

Dancer in the Flames

The NYPD hides a killer within the ranks in this “dark, satisfying” hard-boiled noir thriller (Publishers Weekly).

Detective Boots Littlewood of Brooklyn’s Sixty-Fourth Precinct has been assigned an investigation that’s hitting close to home: the murder of his police captain. It’s been called another tragic cop killing. Boots suspects something closer to an organized hit—and he knows in his gut that the perp in custody is an innocent man. Boots’s new partner, “Crazy” Jill Kelly, is taking it personally, too. The daughter of a murdered officer, she’s got a quick temper, a vengeful streak, and perfect aim.

Once Boots and Jill hit the streets, they uncover more than dirty secrets. The investigation reaches back a decade to the sordid serial crimes of the Lipstick Killer—and ahead to a cesspool of corruption and conspiracy that taints the badges of New York’s finest. But as Boots and Jill prepare for hunting season, they realize that they themselves are being hunted.

Stephen Solomita

Stephen Solomita (b. 1943) is an American author of thrillers. Born in Bayside, Queens, he worked as a cab driver before becoming a novelist in the late 1980’s. His first novel, A Twist of the Knife (1988) won acclaim for its author’s intimate knowledge of New York’s rough patches, and for a hardboiled style that raised a gritty look at urban terrorism above the level of a typical thriller. Solomita wrote six more novels starring the disaffected NYPD cop Stanley Moodrow, concluding the series with Damaged Goods (1996). Solomita continued writing in the same hardboiled style, producing tough, standalone novels like Mercy Killing (2009) and Angel Face (2011). Under the pseudonym David Cray, he writes gentler thrillers such as Dead Is Forever (2004), a traditional mystery in the mode of Ellery Queen. His most recent novel is Dancer In The Flames (2012). He continues to live and write in New York City. 

Severn House