Love the Stranger
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Ted Molloy, a Queens attorney with a troublesome penchant for noble causes, investigates the murder of a corrupt immigration lawyer in the sharply observed follow-up to the 2022 Nero Award winner Tower of Babel.
Ted Molloy has hit his stride with a foreclosure investment scheme that brings him into contact with a cast of shady characters across New York’s most diverse borough, from Hollis to Howard Beach. On the side, he helps his activist girlfriend, Kenzie, with her work to halt construction on “the Spike”—a corporate-backed development project in Corona that would displace the largely immigrant communities surrounding it.
Stop the Spike is heating up: Kenzie spends most of her waking hours fending off smear campaigns and touring community spaces in Queens to spread the word, which she can do thanks to Mohammed, Ted and Kenzie’s close friend, a recent Yemeni immigrant and most expedient cab driver. But when Kenzie learns that Mohammed’s immigration lawyer may be taking advantage of him financially, she decides to snoop around at the law offices—and comes face to face with a dead body as a shadowy figure flees the scene. Now Kenzie is the sole witness to a potential murder. Can Ted and his team get to the bottom of the murder so they can stop the Spike once and for all?
Explore every shady corner of Queens in this keen mystery, the second installment of award-winning author Michael Sears’s critically acclaimed series.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Queens, N.Y., attorney Ted Molloy gets entangled in another case of murder and real estate in Sears's arresting sequel to Tower of Babel. Ted and his business partner, Lester McKinley, have begun using their legal expertise to invest in foreclosed properties and broker dubious loans with local mobsters. They're also advising Ted's girlfriend, activist Kenzie Zielinski, as she tries to stop a development project aimed at gentrifying Corona, Queens, and pricing out its largely immigrant community. As Kenzie's opposition efforts heat up, she asks Ted and Lester to help her friend and frequent cab driver, Mohammed, who's being exploited by his immigration lawyer. When Kenzie pays that lawyer an unexpected visit, she finds him dead and winds up a suspect in his murder. As Ted works to clear Kenzie's name and uncover the real killer, Kenzie becomes the target of a sophisticated smear campaign orchestrated by the man behind the development project—who may have been framing Kenzie from the beginning. Everything that worked in Tower of Babel works just as well here, with sharp characters and noirish atmosphere to spare. This series deserves a long run.
