Night Life

On New Year’s Eve 1953, police detective Michael Cassidy, the hero of Taylor’s strong debut (and the first in a new historical crime series), has a run-in on a Manhattan street with Roy Cohn, Joseph McCarthy’s lawyer in the Wisconsin senator’s Communist-hunting subcommittee. “You’re going to hear from me,” Cohn says after getting Cassidy’s name. “Always a pleasure to hear from a citizen, Mr. Cohen,” Cassidy replies. Meanwhile, a Broadway dancer is found tortured to death in his Hell’s Kitchen apartment. The killer was apparently searching for something that, as Cassidy soon discovers, the FBI, the CIA, and mob boss Frank Costello all want. Cassidy concludes that it must be evidence that would incriminate a very powerful person. The suspense mounts with the body count. Readers will want to see more of the distinctive Cassidy, whose wealthy background as the son of a Broadway producer puts him at odds with his fellow cops. Agent: Lisa Gallagher, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. (Mar.)