Kim Brady Mysteries

"An action-packed thriller you won't be able to put down." -A.J. McCarthy, award-winning author of Cold BetrayalKim Brady, third generation NYPD, returns to the job after her father's recent suicide and catches a career-making case-a mass shooting in Manhattan's Meatpacking District.There is one eyewitness, Leanne, but she can't come forward because she's transgender and she fears coming out. Kim resists her lieutenant's demands to force Leanne's cooperation for personal reasons. She's also being undermined by someone inside the department who is tampering with evidence, threatening the other witness, stalking Leanne.Kim's father died under a cloud and her feelings for him are complicated. And as Kim realizes that someone in the department is behind the shooting, her personal feelings clash with her professional mission. That tension stretches her relationship with her fiancé to its breaking point. The mastermind behind the attack presses Kim's soft spots to gaslight her. Unraveling the elaborate criminal conspiracy forces her to apply the lessons from her father's experiences.

"Deceived by Ornament is a thoroughly New Yorkie novel authored by a proud New Yorker on a creative roll." -Gillespie Lamb, The Junkyard DickDetective Kim Brady must find the killer of Mariano Avila, beloved community activist and immigration lawyer in Brooklyn. The only eyewitness, Amara, a fifteen-year-old undocumented escapee from a human trafficking ring, has described the killer as wearing a police uniform. Kim discovers the details of the murder match those of a cold case from several months earlier.Saddled with a partner who is an unqualified rookie cop forced on her unit by a local state senator with mayoral aspirations, Kim's investigation is micromanaged from above. She soon finds herself in a maelstrom of competing jurisdictions and interests as she struggles to determine if the killer is a cop or an imposter, whether he is a serial killer or part of a larger domestic terrorist plot.When she discovers that a close friend of the victim in the cold case, Rafer Harwood, is part of an anti-immigrant militia suspected of planning a major terror event, she can explain the second murder but not the first. She must protect Amara and find both the killer and the real leader of the militia.Deceived By Ornament, A Kim Brady Mystery. An engrossing crime thriller by Edward J. Leahy.

Shortly after her arrival at Brooklyn North Homicide, Detective Kim Brady is assigned a seven-month-old rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl. While the initial investigation focused on a teen suspect, DNA evidence, as well as the killer's signature, establishes that the killer was also responsible for several older crimes, including the 1963 case Kim's grandfather was working when he was killed. She is chasing a killer who's been on the loose for fifty-five years.Kim's investigation takes place against the backdrop of a special mayoral election pitting a "law and order" state senator against the "defunder" acting mayor. A protest group is accusing the police of letting the case go cold because the victim is a Latina and stoking protests that result in arson and the killing of a firefighter. While Kim awaits the result of DNA analysis, her headquarters receives two bomb threats and the killer strikes again... and again... and again.

"Author Ed Leahy introduces a deep, strong dose of how fragmented humanity can be, whether seeking justice, witnessing crime, or enjoying the simple perverted joy of ruining people's lives." -C. Hope Clark, The Edisto Island MysteriesWhile Detective Kim Brady is in Bermuda recovering from depression, an aid of the mayor's arrives with a summons to return to New York to investigate the assassination of Sabrina Dunn, a long-time critic and political opponent of the mayor's. Although the mayor pledges his full support, Kim can't ignore the mayor's potential motive. But she soon learns of others with a potential motive, including Sabrina's estranged father and a group of investors pushing a major redevelopment project that Sabrina opposed.The investigation is soon complicated when details are leaked to the press. No sooner does Kim learn the identity of the assassin than his body is found. Shortly after, the assassin's identity is also leaked, along with a report that the mayor and the assassin had at one time been coworkers, a fact the police did not have. Kim struggles to find the source of the leak, to learn if there is some connection between the redevelopment project and the assassination, and to determine, once and for all, the mayor's guilt or innocence.

Moments after Kim Brady finishes her first half-marathon, shots ring out, and three of her fellow detectives, all African-American, are hit, two fatally. With no one from Brooklyn South available, she commences the investigation, finding a witness who identifies where the shots came from but who also claims to be descended from a Knight Templar. The media immediately speculate that the shooter is a white nationalist, but Kim refuses to jump to conclusions, and the description provided by her witness leaves room for doubt.The mayor, in a primary fight for re-election with civil unrest mounting, heaps pressure on the NYPD to solve the shooting as soon as possible, but he is faced with a re-emergence of his feelings for Kim and a jurisdictional turf war over the investigation. Kim must find an outside-the-box solution as well as keeping the mayor at a distance. Her task grows herculean when two more cops are shot and killed in Brooklyn and two after that in Queens. Her ability to work with multiple law enforcement agencies is put to the test, but everything's riding on her seeing what others won't.