Acts and Omissions

They were both from Parkchester in the Bronx—Tom McCabe, the top scorer for Cardinal Hayes Memorial’s state basketball champions and Chris Russo, who fed him under the boards. They were inseparable through graduation. McCabe then opted for the Washington Heights campus of CCNY while Russo joined the marines and then the cops.

As our story begins, they’re together again, Thomas Jarvis McCabe, is New York City’s mayor, and James Christopher Russo, his police commissioner. Then a brutal, seemingly senseless murder of two prominent community activists goes down in the last six months of the mayor’s first term in office—he’d be running for reelection in just three months.

The investigation of the killings takes some strange turns and hits some unexpected detours, creating serious personal and political implications for McCabe and Russo. The Chief Medical Examiner will raise some forensic questions, the Bronx chapter of the Genovese mob will get some unwelcome scrutiny; and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York will eagerly jump into the investigation when some surprising, almost inconceivable conspiracies emerge.