Sacrifice Fly

New York: Minotaur Books, 2012. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/very good. [10], 307, [3] pages. Signed on title page under the author's printed name. Signed copy sticker on front of DJ. Tim O'Mara has been teaching math and special education in the New York City public schools since 1987, 12 of them in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Sacrifice Fly, his first novel, introduces schoolteacher/ex-cop Raymond Donne and was nominated for the 2013 Best First Novel Barry Award. Other Donne mysteries: Crooked Numbers, Dead Red, Nasty Cutter, slated for release in the U.S. January 1, 2017. About the book: Raymond Donne wasn't always a schoolteacher. Not only did he patrol the streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, as one of New York's Finest, but being the nephew of the chief of detectives, he was expected to go on to bigger things. At least he was until the accident that destroyed his knees. Unable to do the job the way he wanted, he became a teacher in the same neighborhood, and did everything he could to put the force behind him and come to terms with the change. Then Frankie Rivas, a student in Ray's class and a baseball phenom, stops showing up to school. With Frankie in danger of failing and missing out on a scholarship, Ray goes looking for him, only to find Frankie's father bludgeoned to death in their apartment. Frankie and his younger sister are gone, possibly on the run. But did Frankie really kill his father? Ray can't believe it. But then who did, and where are Frankie and his sister? Ray doesn't know, but if he's going to have any chance of bringing them home safely, he's going to have to return to the life, the people, and the demons he walked out on all those years ago. Intense, authentic, and completely gripping, Tim O'Mara's Sacrifice Fly is an outstanding debut from a stellar new voice in crime fiction.