Red on Red — Edward Conlon

In Red on Red, Edward Conlon tells the story of two NYPD detectives, Meehan and Esposito: one damaged and introspective, the other ambitious and unscrupulous. Meehan is compelled by haunting and elusive stories that defy easy resolution, while Esposito is drawn to cases of rough and ordinary combat. A fierce and unlikely friendship develops between them and plays out against a tangle of mysteries: a lonely immigrant who hangs herself in Inwood Hill Park, a serial rapist preying on upper Manhattan, a troubled Catholic schoolgirl who appears in the wrong place with uncanny regularity, and a savage gang war that erupts over a case of mistaken identity.

Red on Red captures the vibrant dynamic of a successful police partnership -- the tests of loyalty, the necessary betrayals, the wedding of life and work -- and tells an unrelenting and exciting story that captures the grittiness, complexity, ironies, and compromises of life on the job.