A page-turning novel about the inner workings of the NYPD, based on the true story of a young officer's decades-long fight for respect in the male-dominated world.
The Bronx, 1958.
The Policewomen's Bureau isn’t respected within the Department, even when it handles cases the men can’t solve. Marie Carrara is a young police matron who wants to move beyond the grim routine of guarding female prisoners to become one of the few female detectives in the NYPD. Though she is a shy and naive, from a sheltered, immigrant background, Marie dives into the strange and terrifying world of big-city undercover work without hesitation, using her genuine innocence to deceive degenerates and drug dealers into thinking that she’s an easy target. As she begins to create tougher undercover characters, she discovers that they might be able to inspire her in her off-duty life as well. Despite the violence of her job, the sexism she faces daily, and a rocky-at-best marriage waiting for her at home, Marie is determined to make a name for herself within the NYPD and be the role model her young daughter deserves.
With the support of Marie Cirile, the real-life inspiration for Marie Carrara, Edward Conlon adapts the true events of her memoir into a thrilling drama, a book only a best-selling author and decorated Bronx detective could have written.
From the author of the celebrated and bestselling memoir "Blue Blood" ("May be the best account ever written of life behind the badge." --"Time") comes this highly anticipated fiction debut. In "Red on Red, " Edward Conlon tells the story of two NYPD detectives, Meehan and Esposito: one damaged and introspective, the other ambitious and unscrupulous. Meehan is compelled by haunting and elusive stories that defy easy resolution, while Esposito is drawn to cases of rough and ordinary combat.
A fierce and unlikely friendship develops between them and plays out against a tangle of mysteries: a lonely immigrant who hangs herself in Inwood Hill Park, a serial rapist preying on upper Manhattan, a troubled Catholic schoolgirl who appears in the wrong place with uncanny regularity, and a savage gang war that erupts over a case of mistaken identity.
"Red on Red "captures the vibrant dynamic of a successful police partnership--the tests of loyalty, the necessary betrayals, the wedding of life and work--and tells an unrelenting and exciting story that captures the grittiness, complexity, ironies, and compromises of life on the job.
