by Jeffery Deaver
Book 1 in the Rune Trilogy
published 1988
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Back in 1988, a young author emerged onto the crime scene with a fresh and inspiring New York crime series starring a young aspiring film-maker – Rune. The series quickly established their author as one to watch. In this opener, Rune becomes obsessed with the murder of one of the customers at her video store. Mr. Kelly had been renting the classic noir movie – MANHATTAN IS MY BEAT – over and over again and she swiftly becomes convinced that the secret to his brutal death is hidden in its black-and-white frames. But what she doesn’t realize is that her interest is going to bring her far close to the killer than she ever could have wanted
Five feet two inches of slick repartee, near-purple hair, and poetic imagination, twenty-year-old Rune hasn’t been in Manhattan for very long. But she’s crafty enough to have found a squatter’s paradise in an empty TriBeCa loft, and a video store job that feeds her passion for old movies. It’s a passion she shares with her favorite customer, Mr. Kelly, a lonely old man who rents the same video over and over. The flick is a noir classic based on a real-life unsolved bank heist and a million missing dollars. It’s called Manhattan Is My Beat.
That’s the tape Rune is picking up from Mr. Kelly’s shabby apartment when she finds him shot to death. The police suspect a robbery gone wrong, but Rune is certain the key to solving the murder is hidden somewhere in the hazy, black-and-white frames of Mr. Kelly’s beloved movie. But as Rune hits the mean streets of New York to find answers, she gets caught up in a dangerous adventure more chilling than anything Hollywood could dream up. As her story draws to its terrifying conclusion, Rune’s final close-up may include the killer of a co-star.
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