Don't Tell a Soul

Near the start of this stellar stand-alone from Rosenfelt (Play Dead ), ordinary guy Timothy Wallace, still grieving for his wife, Maggie, who was blown to bits in a boating explosion on Long Island Sound a few months earlier, hears a gruesome secret from a fellow bar patron on New Year's Eve. Tim was investigated and cleared as a person of interest in Maggie's death, but now Tim becomes a suspect in a second woman's death. Meanwhile, as a partner in a security construction firm that's prospered in the wake of 9/11, Tim is focused on his company's part in the building of the Federal Center, a huge complex funded by the U.S. government, in Newark, N.J. The president is due to appear at the center's opening festivities. Det. Jonathon Novack believes Tim's a stone-cold killer and is eager to arrest him. Rosenfelt keeps the plot hopping and popping as he reveals a complex frameup of major proportions with profound political ramifications both terrifying and enlightening. Author tour. (July)