Strangers in the Night

Rookie crime journalist Kate Murray needs a hot story and decides to investigate the death of a black nurse who was gunned down in front of her apartment by a drug dealer's hired gun. Kate gets information from NYPD Detective John Finn and from Dominick Donatti, a druggie and mother-fixated lowlife who witnessed the murder. Both Finn and Dominick fall hard for Kate. Finn represents the high end of the NYPD, here depicted as a collection of misogynist cretins who do most of their thinking from below the waist, while Dominick, whose devotion reaches a demented level, soon poses a different danger to Kate. Tyre, a Pulitzer Prize-winning crime reporter for New York Newsday , clearly knows her territory, yet this tale lacks dramatic tension and is slowed by an excess of cruel, moronic male characters, including Kate's two superiors at the newspaper and the endless parade of flatulent, foulmouthed cops. Only sad-sack Dominick leaves a lasting impression. (Apr.)