A Queens Mystery Series

In Michael Sears’s latest Queens Mystery, a vicious attack from a long-time adversary forces Queens lawyer Ted Molloy to decide how far he is willing to go to fight an opponent much bigger than him.

Never trust a rat. Never corner one, either. When you corner a rat, it attacks. Ted Molloy—disgraced Queens lawyer turned semi-heroic private investigator—has learned this over the years. Problem is, for Ted: there are too many rats in New York City, and never enough space for them to roam.

And so they attack. Kenzie Zielinski—Ted’s longtime girlfriend, who runs a nonprofit campaign to stop the construction of a luxury tower in Queens—just happens to be on the receiving end of it. After Kenzie lands in the hospital, and Ted narrowly escapes an attack on his own life, the pair’s relationship is gravely tested, and both may be willing to make a deal with the devil to the stop the madness.

Meanwhile, Lester McKinley—Ted’s parter-in-crime in their small-time foreclosure business—takes the lead in in the case of a recent widower who stands to make bank from a surplus money case. But his investigations bring him into a world of gambling, addiction, and buried secrets that awaken his own demons, and lead him to an explosive finale on the streets of outer Queens.

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.

Shamus Award–winning author Michael Sears brings Queens, New York, to literary life in this crime series debut featuring a somewhat seedy lawyer with a heart of gold (or at least gold plate).

Queens, New York—the most diverse place on earth. Native son Ted Molloy knows these streets like the back of his hand. Ted was once a high-powered Manhattan lawyer, but after a spectacular fall from grace, he has found himself back on his home turf, scraping by as a foreclosure profiteer. It’s a grubby business, but a safe one—until Ted’s case sourcer, a mostly reformed small-time conman named Richie Rubiano, turns up murdered shortly after tipping Ted off to an improbably lucrative lead.

With Richie’s widow on his back and shadows of the past popping up at every turn, Ted realizes he’s gotten himself embroiled in a murder investigation. His quest for the truth will take him all over Queens, plunging him into the machinations of greedy developers, mobsters, enraged activists, old litigator foes and old-school New York City operators.