Blindside

This novel in the Detective Michael Bennett series follows Bennett, an NYPD Manhattan North Homicide investigator and single father of ten adopted children, as a routine crime scene draws him into an international conspiracy involving cybercriminals, contract killers, and the mayor of New York City.

Bennett responds to a Bronx apartment where a nurse named Sondra Evans and her nine-year-old daughter, Alicia, have been shot dead. The mother's body lies over the child in a failed attempt to shield her, and the scene shakes Bennett deeply. He walks the victims' grandmother to her adult sons' home to break the news. Returning to his car, Bennett is robbed at gunpoint by a young street criminal named RJ (Ronald Timmons Junior). A second man, known by the street name "Tight" and an acquaintance of RJ's, emerges from an alley with a Colt .45 and pressures RJ to shoot. When a passing car distracts both men, Bennett draws his Glock, identifies himself as police, and fires twice, killing RJ. Tight flees.

An angry crowd accuses Bennett of murder. His lieutenant and longtime friend, Harry Grissom, arrives and disperses the group. At his Upper West Side apartment, Bennett's fiancée, Mary Catherine, and his children comfort him as the Reverend Franklin Caldwell, a self-appointed community advocate, labels him a killer on the news. Bennett's grandfather, Seamus, a Catholic priest, leads a quiet grace at dinner.

Meanwhile, two European contract killers arrive in New York working for Endrik "Henry" Laar, a cyber genius based in Tallinn, Estonia, who runs a hacking and blackmail operation targeting major corporations. Alice Groff, a German woman, and her Romanian partner, Janos Titon, carry a list of American hackers to recruit. Their first target, a young programmer named Tommy Payne, agrees under duress to fly to Estonia, but Alice plants a GPS tracker in his wallet as insurance. When they discover Tommy at Penn Station instead of the airport, they confront him again. He refuses to cooperate, and Alice strangles him with a wire near the station. They turn to their next target: Jennifer Chang.

Placed on post-shooting suspension, Bennett quietly works the Bronx case off the books. Detective Terri Hernandez, a former colleague now in the Bronx, tells him surveillance video corroborates his account and that Tight may be connected to the double homicide. Grissom drives Bennett to City Hall for a meeting with Mayor Alfred Hanna, who reveals that his twenty-one-year-old daughter, Natalie Lunden, has been missing for three weeks. A computer prodigy who was expelled from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Natalie uses her mother's maiden name. The mayor asks Bennett to find her discreetly, hinting he might help secure early release for Bennett's son Brian, who is in state prison.

Bennett discovers that Natalie's rent was wired from a bank in Tallinn and that Tommy Payne has been murdered, dramatically escalating the case. Through Columbia University records and his technologically gifted son Eddie's skills, Bennett traces Jennifer Chang to a coffeehouse called Brew near campus. Alice and Janos also track Jennifer to Brew through her roommate, Oscar Gonzales, whom they threaten and later kill, hiding his body inside a shipping casket.

At Brew, Jennifer describes Henry as a hacker-turned-blackmailer who extorts corporations by crippling their websites. She confirms Natalie was romantically involved with Henry and is likely in Estonia. The conversation is shattered when two Dutch contract killers employed by Henry, Christoph Visser and Ollie Van Netta, recognize Alice and Janos entering and open fire. Bennett shields Jennifer, but Alice shoots her in the back. Alice and Janos are killed along with two civilians; Christoph and Ollie escape. Jennifer survives surgery but faces a long recovery.

All evidence points to Tallinn. The mayor cannot fund the trip, so Bennett goes on his own. Seamus arranges a contact: Father Marty Zlatic, rector of St. Laszlo's, a Russian Orthodox church in Tallinn. At the airport, FBI agent Bill Fiore and his partner Matt Miller try to detain Bennett, insisting he has no jurisdiction, but NYPD Intelligence operatives extract him and provide a pistol. A man posing as a janitor named Gunnar directs Bennett to a building on Tartu Maantee, but the lead is a trap planted by Henry. When Fiore catches up and tries to escort Bennett to the airport, Bennett escapes through St. Laszlo's hidden corridors with Father Marty's help.

Inside the building, Henry, a short, muscular man who cloned the mayor's phone and tracked Bennett's every move, waits on a catwalk surrounded by armed men, including Christoph and Ollie. Natalie appears, insisting she came voluntarily and loves Henry. Fiore bursts in, triggering a firefight: Fiore shoots Gunnar dead, and Bennett wounds one of Henry's men. Henry orders the wounded man executed to eliminate witnesses. Fiore takes bullets to the shoulder and abdomen. Bennett empties his magazine covering Fiore's escape, then surrenders and is locked in a basement room.

Natalie visits Bennett, and he tells her about Tommy's murder and Jennifer's shooting, forcing her to confront Henry's violence. When Christoph leads Bennett toward the loading dock to be executed, Natalie ambushes Christoph with a two-by-four. Bennett overpowers him, and Natalie cuts Bennett's bonds. They flee by bus to St. Laszlo's, where Father Marty arranges a car to Riga, Latvia. But Natalie emails her mother from the church's Wi-Fi, tipping off Henry's operation. Christoph rams their getaway car, and a chase leads to Pae Park.

On a pedestrian bridge, Christoph fires at them. Bennett throws Natalie into the lake to shield her, then closes the distance. In a brutal struggle, Bennett disarms Christoph, bludgeons him with his own empty pistol, and throws him off the bridge into the mud, where the killer becomes trapped. Ollie, injured and recognizing defeat, salutes Bennett and walks away. Bennett dives into the freezing water, finds Natalie unconscious, and performs CPR until she revives.

At East Tallinn Central Hospital, Bennett visits Fiore, who is recovering from surgery. Christoph is arrested with outstanding warrants in multiple countries; Ollie disappears. Bennett and Natalie fly home to an emotional family reunion at JFK.

Days later, Bennett receives a text apparently from the mayor asking him to meet a car. Knowing the phone has been cloned because Eddie identified the anomaly, Bennett sets a trap with Grissom's squad. He and Detective Hernandez, disguised as Natalie, get into the limo Henry's driver sends. When Henry arrives at an isolated Queens street, Hernandez stuns the driver with a hidden Taser while Bennett disarms Henry. Henry, trained in Tae Kwon Do, lands several punishing kicks, but Bennett breaks a choke hold and finishes the fight with a head-butt that shatters Henry's nose. Grissom's squad arrives and arrests Henry.

The mayor officially clears Bennett in the Timmons shooting and gets Reverend Caldwell to cease his protests. Bennett presses the mayor to follow through on helping Brian. Days later, Bennett surprises his family with a drive to Fishkill Correctional Facility, where Brian walks out in civilian clothes, granted early parole. The family breaks down in tears. With Brian home, Bennett's informant Flash locates Tight. Bennett arrests him at Convent Garden park, seizing the same Colt .45. Tight confesses he killed the nurse and her daughter because the nurse refused to supply him with painkillers. Bennett hands the case to Hernandez and heads home to his ten children.