NIGHTBIRD by Edward Dee - SIGNED FIRST EDITION BOOK

They swore the beautiful but unlucky young actress was already dead on the Times Square sidewalk before he reached the scene. But NYPD detective Anthony Ryan also swore he heard her whisper three words in his ear as he bent over her body. Three words that would haunt him in a case that from its first moments was already too strange for words.... The stage is the back alleys of Broadway and the old Irish neighborhoods still hanging on in bedroom suburbs like Yonkers. This is the world of Anthony Ryan and his detective partner, Joe Gregory--a world circumscribed by ancient habit and sudden violence, and all the world they know or need. The apparent jumper suicide of Gillian Stone rouses the pair's practiced suspicions. Joining them in their investigation is Ryan's nephew Danny Eumont, an ambitious reporter whose, prior acquaintance with the victim was more than merely professional. The prime suspect is a Broadway producer with a shady backstage past. But the specter of a mysterious street entertainer, the "Juggler," keeps resurfacing, entwined with the comings and goings of the dead girl's sister, whose own deeply guarded secrets may hold one answer--and many more deadly questions. Alive with incident, textured with the guts and heart of a big-city detective's world, this is the tale only a seasoned cop and a born storyteller could tell." Although the horror and hilarity of his NYPD career are evident in his work, Ed focuses on the cops themselves how the depressing grind of an impossible job infects and changes them, then spills over onto those they love. Ed has two daughters and four grandchildren. He lives in Delaware with his wife, Nancy who made the frying pan-to-fire leap of cop's wife to writer's wife.