The Hard Way

by Carol Lea Benjamin

Overview

A “well-plotted” mystery about a PI and her canine partner’s search for a murderer among NYC’s homeless has “a strong sense of place and social conscience” (Publishers Weekly). 
 
Native New Yorker Rachel Alexander has seen a lot on the streets of Manhattan in her years as a private investigator. But when a client hires her to find a murderer among the city’s homeless, Rachel uncovers a whole new layer. Disguised as a bag lady, her discerning pit bull Dash by her side, Rachel descends into the city’s underbelly to find a deranged man that witnesses claim pushed prominent businessman Gardner Redstone on to the subway tracks. Instead, Rachel discovers the dark disparity between the city’s wealthiest and its poorest—and that sometimes all that glitters is not necessarily gold. 
 
The only thing certain is that someone did murder Redstone. But could that suspect possibly be found within his own well-heeled community? Donning a new cover, Rachel and Dash infiltrate New York City’s elite society, determined to shatter some illusions about criminal behavior.
 
“Benjamin mixes an intriguing puzzle with a dollop of introspection.” —Library Journal
 
Praise for the Rachel Alexander and Dash Mysteries
 
“One of the best private eye series around.” —Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Fool Me Once
 
“Her high quality of prose and convincing way with dialogue may surprise and delight new readers.” —Chicago Sun-Times
 
“Alexander is someone who holds your interest and makes you keep turning the pages.” —Nevada Barr, New York Times–bestselling author of Flashback
 
“Benjamin’s work [is] first rate.” —The Plain Dealer

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781504099806
Publisher:	Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
Publication date:	04/22/2025
Series:	The Rachel Alexander and Dash Mysteries , #9
Pages:	310
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Carol Lea Benjamin is the author of the Rachel Alexander and Dash mystery novels, which feature a Greenwich Village–based private investigator and her pit bull sidekick. This Dog for Hire, the first book in the series, won the Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel. Benjamin has also been a teacher, worked as a private investigator, trained dogs, and written dog-training manuals such as Mother Knows Best: The Natural Way to Train Your Dog. She lives in New York City with her husband and two dogs.

Read an Excerpt

The Hard Way

Chapter One

Eunice saw the can of Chicken of the Sea light tuna in water at the same time the rat did, but he was closer to it and got there first. She thumped the trash with her stick, once, twice, but the rat didn't even look up, his tongue snaking around the jagged edge of the lid, looking for a way in. When they take it all the way off, you can get in easy, Eunice thought, watching the rat work at the can. You don't have to poke in something skinny and sharp. You don't have to pry the lid up. But then things get in the can and you have to pick them out and when you do, sometimes there isn't anything left, not even enough for Lookout, though he'd always lick the tins she gave him anyway, not stopping until they were clean as new.

Lookout came from a Dumpster, too, like most of his meals and hers, but he hadn't been diving, he'd been pitched, inside a plastic bag, like a used diaper, the handles knotted twice. She'd heard him, a small cry, maybe a kitten, or a baby, Eunice had thought, digging into the trash until she'd found the bag, felt how warm it was and opened the knots. She'd saved his life, freeing him, then using the change she'd begged for that day to buy him milk and bread, tearing the bread into small pieces and letting it sop up the milk before she gave it to him.

Just a few weeks later, only a short time after Eunice had felt Lookout's beating heart through the plastic bag, someone took her cart, stole it while she slept. He'd barked, the high, squeaky bark of a puppy, he'd tried to help her even then, but by the time Eunice got her head out from under the blankets and newspapers, the cart was gone, only thebroom that had stuck out like a flag thrown down on the sidewalk and left there. What was she supposed to do, all her clothes gone, the lamp, the picture of a tree in a blond wood frame? Everything. Like her store. What was it called? Eunice had wondered. She'd picked up a piece of sandwich wrapped in foil and torn off a small bite for Lookout, holding it up to his face at the opening of her jacket, the two of them keeping each other warm right from the beginning.

He was big now, his bark an explosion, and even with his muscles hidden under three sweaters, the red one, her favorite, in the middle to keep it clean, you could see he was a dog you wouldn't mess with. If Eunice had a cart now, no one would take it. But Eunice didn't even have that can of tuna and the noise from the fire trucks was giving her a terrible headache.

She peeked over the top of the Dumpster, Lookout waiting on the sidewalk, wagging his tail when he saw her, find anything? find anything? find anything? He was hungry, too. Maybe they'd do better later, after the restaurants closed, leftover bread in the trash, sometimes even raw meat. She knew where to make a fire, how to cook the meat on the end of a stick, thinking maybe that's what happened across the street, the squatters cooking up dinner or trying to keep warm, the fire getting out of hand, the whole building glowing against the dark sky, the ladder of the fire truck sticking up like the beanstalk going to the giant's castle, smoke, like a cloud, around the top of it and just a glimpse of the firefighter up there, Eunice wishing she could have a coat like that, black with yellow bands, a coat that would keep out the rain and snow, a coat that would keep her warm. Lookout still did that, his body as hot as a furnace when he curled against her inside a cardboard box or under some piece of plastic, newspaper stuffed inside her coat and shoes, the wind still whipping at her face, stinging, making it burn with cold.

Eunice climbed out of the Dumpster and crossed the street. Maybe it would be warmer there, nearer the fire. That's when she saw the soldier for the first time, but he wasn't a soldier now, he was homeless, just like Eunice, what little he owned on one shoulder, hanging from the remaining strap of his lumpy khaki backpack. She stood next to him, watching the fire, a waiter from the diner down the block there, too, shivering in his white shirt and black jeans, a woman in a leopard coat, or maybe it was fake fur, the spots too even for it to be real, the woman shaking her head, close to tears. There was a man with a scar on his face a few feet away, shaved head, earrings, boots, a diver's watch on his wrist, checking the time, all of them looking up at the fire, the smoke coming through the roof as red as the fires of hell.

The soldier turned and looked at her. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Eunice," she told him. "What's yours?"

"Eddie."

"Eddy," Eunice repeated. "Whirling water."

"No," he told her. "Eddie Perkins."

What if he asked her last name, Eunice thought, because she didn't know what it was and thinking he might ask made her head sweat under her watch cap, made sweat run down between her breasts, because they'd asked that time the paramedics found her, after she had that fall, and Eunice saw the way they looked at each other, two men, one young and fat, the smell of pizza on his mouth, the other one around forty, dark hair, pointy nose, acted like he was a fucking doctor and Eunice knew what that look meant and even though she'd hurt her leg, she got up and ran, Lookout following her, ran before they got her into the ambulance and took her away, leaving her dog on the street to fend for himself.

The Hard Way. Copyright © by Carol Benjamin. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.