The funeral of Charles Henry Topping on Manhattan's Upper East Side would have been a minor affair but for the presence of one particular mourner: the notoriously reclusive author A. N. Dyer, whose novel "Ampersand" stands as a classic of American teenage angst. But as Andrew Newbold Dyer delivers the eulogy for his oldest friend, he suffers a breakdown over the life he's led and the people he's hurt and the novel that will forever endure as his legacy....

Detective Zach Jordan is the best of the best, a brilliant and tireless detective. He puts professionalism above all, ignoring his feelings for his partner Kylie MacDonald, the woman who broke his heart when they first met at the police academy. After solving a brutal string of murders during the Hollywood on Hudson film festival, the scandalous hazmat killer case, the mysterious kidnapping of a billionaire businessman's son, and a shocking jewel...