I am a bit of a fan of this author's Blackie and Care series of books so I was eager to see what she did with a more conventional mystery. And I wasn't disappointed at all... The story features rookie Boston Standard reporter Emily "Em" Kelton who is currently working the crime beat, and we follow her as she actively responds to every crime she hears on the Police Scanner. After being "called" to a few "random" street murders, she starts to believe that they are connected. A belief that is NOT shared by the local police. Especially her homicide detective sort-of contact Inspector Jack Harcourt, who she also has a bit of a crush on! To complete our trio of main characters, we also have Roz who works the City Hall Bureau and who feeds her tidbits... This is a messy book, and I mean that in a very positive way. Em flits around various crime scenes, various drinking dens, and various other places, in order to sniff out the truth of what she believes is going on. And that in itself is the messy part. The clarity coming later when she tries to sort the wheat from the chaff and put it all together. Which obviously she eventually does. It's action packed all the way through culminating in a wholly satisfying, albeit quite shocking ending. There is quite a lot (but not too much) of scene setting, character introductions, and foundation laying which all lead me to wonder if this is the start of a new series of books. I for one would be up for that, definitely.