The Detective and Dorothy Day

The Detective and Dorothy Day blends detective noir with historical fiction, set in eastern New York in 1975. The story follows Sy Johnson, a Manhattan private investigator hired by a labor union to probe the murder of upstate chemical tycoon Jack Williams. The accused killer is a local union president, but the deeper Sy digs, the murkier the case becomes.

His investigation leads him to the Catholic Worker farm in Tivoli, where he meets seventy-seven-year-old Dorothy Day, the renowned writer, pacifist, and co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement. There he also encounters James, a black Vietnam veteran battling addiction, and his sister Roberta, a singer Sy met the night before.

The murder case expands into a web of environmental pollution, labor unrest, high finance and corruption, complicated further by Sy's romantic entanglements and close brushes with death. From barrooms to a ballroom, and from Brooklyn's backstreets to quiet waters and woodland, Sy finds himself confronting not just killers, but his own conscience.

As he unravels connections between five murders and a world poisoned by greed and guilt, his unlikely bond with Dorothy Day challenges him to seek justice and redemption in a new light.

The Detective and Dorothy Day is both a gripping thriller and a meditation on morality in a world on the edge.