Red on Red by Edward Conlon

Meehan and Esposito are NYPD detectives. Unlikely partners, Detective Garelick explains it best when he says that nobody got along with Esposito and no one really got along with Meehan, but the two of them – one Irish and one Italian worked well together and solved cases.


Meehan, introspective and distant, separated from his wife and living with his father not far from the job, has little to do outside of work. Esposito, flamboyant and brash, has a wife and children, and a life away from the city, but lives for the job.

Follow the detectives through their days of homicides, suicides, notifying families of death, gang violence and retaliation and sexual assaults. Solving the crime and making the results fit into tidy packages tied up for the prosecution was not always legally possible. Internal Affairs investigates, but Esposito and Meehan skate a fine line between legal and illegal arrests. At times both tragic and comic, this police procedural is recommended for its realism.

Edward Conlon, author of the memoir, Blue Blood writes his first fiction novel; many cops will recognize as a page from their life.