Love in a Dark Place: A Novel

October 2017, north of Boston. The body of a 60-year-old drug addict and former prostitute is pulled from the Shawsheen River. The only person questioned is a former lover from decades before, now an aging English professor at a nearby college. The death is ruled accidental.

August 1984, Atlantic City. Ten casinos are taking in $5 million a day; the Bruno crime family, following a deadly mob war, is in control of the city’s rackets: loan-sharking, protection, fight-fixing, high-end prostitut...