The Middle of Nowhere: A Lenny Bliss Mystery

Detective Lenny Bliss is still trying to get a break and, at this point in life, perhaps even find a little inner peace. Instead, he's got a floater on the banks of the East River. Along for the ride is his wife, Rachel, who has whimsically turned her attentions from stand-up comedy to novel writing and is doing research for her book about - coincidentally - a homicide investigation.
The investigation isn't off to a fast start when another murder takes priority. A young man is found dead after a party in a posh Upper East Side town house. Arriving on the scene, Bliss realizes he had been to the home before, looking for his sixteen-year-old daughter. Should it emerge that he was present at the crime scene, it would taint his case. No one is more enthusiastic about Bliss's dilemma that the hulking Dom DeMoro, former cop and boxer who works security for the town house and has surveillance information that could implicate Bliss. As if this weren't enough, Bliss also has to deal with the other characters orbiting the case: Rick, the fragile but volatile father of the murdered boy; Clara, the housekeeper; Chantal, his daughter's girlfriend who was somehow involved, though her memory of the party is hazy; Owen, the dead boy's best friend; and Owen's father, the philandering, potty-mouthed real estate mogul.
Bliss navigates through this world of too much money and not enough sense while looking for whoever murdered the boy without implicating himself and keeping in check with his wife's newfound literary obsession. It all leads up to a harrowing finale by the bank of the East River where it all began.