Excerpt from Murder at the 42nd Street Library by Con Lehane, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

They drank wine. When neighbors called on the phone, she spoke to them briefly. The few who knocked on the door, she spoke to on the stoop. When it got late and Ambler made to leave, she asked him to stay. He slept with her nestled in his arms, both of them fully clothed. Yet at some time during the night, their mouths met. They kissed gently and went back to sleep, Adele still in his arms. When he left in the morning, neither of them mentioned the kiss or their night together.

At the cemetery, by the time Harry finally arrived, tumbling out of a taxi a few rows of gravestones from the burial plot, the chilly wind whipped droplets of rain against Ambler's face. He'd worn only his suit, no topcoat. The same wind pressed Adele's black knit dress against her thighs and carried most of Harry's words off toward Jamaica Bay. The group around the grave was small, mostly women from the neighborhood, most of them past middle age. Fewer than expected showed up because of an informal boycott by the strict-constructionist Catholics who saw the proceedings as sacrilegious because of Harry's defrocked status. Ambler found it strange that Adele seemed to have no relatives.

Harry, normally a cheerful, roly-poly sort, a veritable Friar Tuck, was this day distracted and out of sorts but didn't explain why until after the handful of folks who'd gathered after the funeral at what was now Adele's home, or stopped by carrying chafing dishes of meatballs, tuna salad, and such things, were gone—and after he'd gulped down a good-sized tumbler of brandy.

"Someone was shot in the library?"

"Killed," Harry said. "Murdered. Right in front of my eyes."

"Who?"

"A man who came to my office."

"Who shot him?"

"God, if I know … a crazed killer."

"Is there any other kind?" Adele asked. She was frozen to the spot, a glass in one hand, bottle in the other, about to pour Ambler a glass of wine.

"A philosophical question," said Ambler. "Does someone need to be insane to commit a murder? Perhaps. Practically speaking, insanity doesn't provide much of a murder defense."

"It wasn't really a question," said Adele.

"The killer got away?"

"It seems so." Harry looked helplessly at Ambler, seeming bewildered by what happened, drifting off into his thoughts or memory every few seconds, staring blankly into space.

*   *   *

"What now?" Ambler asked Adele. He was helping her wash dishes and wrap and put away leftovers after they'd poured frazzled, tipsy Harry into a car service cab and sent him off.

"I want to get out of this neighborhood as quickly as I can. I'm terrified I'll end up like my mother." Her face was drawn, with lines at the corners of her mouth he hadn't seen before. Her voice was strained.

"Your life will be different than hers," Ambler said.

She straightened up from stuffing the last of the plastic containers of leftovers into the refrigerator and faced him. "How different, Raymond? How will it be different?" She sounded irritated, angry, but really she was sad. "Life is pretty miserable for most people, isn't it? Sad, painful, lonely—" Her eyes sought his, a rebuke; then, in seconds, the sadness returned; her lip quivered. He hesitated before walking closer to her and placing his hand on her shoulder. Leaning into him, her voice small, she said, "I'm missing so much in my life." In another few seconds, she broke away from him.

Adele was pretty, with blondish hair cut short, soft, full lips, and dimples so she looked impish when she smiled. Her prettiness seemed a kind of afterthought, as if she didn't pay much attention to it; even so, he sensed she knew she was pretty. Her sadness made her seem fragile. He didn't know what to say to comfort her. Like her voice, she seemed to have grown smaller. He wanted to take her in his arms. But he didn't think she wanted that. She did want to talk, so he let her.

Excerpted from Murder at the 42nd Street Library by Con Lehane. Copyright © 2016 by Con Lehane. Excerpted by permission of Minotaur Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.