Rachel Alexander hardly knew N.Y.P.D. Detective Timothy O'Fallon, who had a fatal "accident" while cleaning his service revolver in his Greenwich Village apartment. As a member of Rachel's 9/11 support group, O'Fallon had shared little and revealed nothing, except a strong attachment to Rachel's dog, Dash. Yet, for some unknown reason, in his will he named Rachel as the executor of his estate.
But as Rachel starts piecing together the sad, disparate pieces of Timothy O'Fallon's life, she comes to believe that this fatality was no accident ... or even, in some dark, disturbing way, the suicide that his colleagues suspect. For a bizarre, three decades-old tragedy hidden deep in the shadows of the dead man's family history has left a legacy of violence, grief, and guilt -- and more victims will surely fall because of it.
Even though the publication date on this is 2004, it must have been written in early 2002. It is by far the darkest of the Rachel Alexander mysteries that I've read, and it talks quite a bit about 9/11. Once I steeled myself for a bit of a depressing read, it did end up to be really good in the end--she kept me guessing about whodunnit til near the end.