Night Cover — Michael Z. Lewin

Detective Lieutenant Leroy Powder holds the "night cover" job in his Indianapolis precinct, where he keeps the night's hot crimes warm till the day boys wake up and come to work. The prickly but shrewd Powder is transferred to a day shift and has to investigate a string of murders as well as another bizarre crime which pulls him into the strange world of a school for messed-up kids. Out in the daylight people don't at first make sense to an officer whose career took a turn into the dead end of night, but Powder soon discovers that detection can be 9 to 5 if you go by the book.