The Detective's Garden
A Love Story and Meditation on Murder
The Detective’s Garden: A Love Story and Meditation on Murder is set in Brooklyn in 1995. Originally from Slovenia, ex-NYPD Homicide Detective Emil Milosec, a man with a past poised to reclaim him is perennially on the outside. Elena, his beauty of a wife, has died, but she has filled pages of letters to him—which he has so far refused to read. Elena always remained elusive to him, and she still is.
An ugly discovery among the leafy haven of their backyard garden unsettles the uneasy truce Emil has managed since Elena’s death. A lively cast of local characters, a dark history and an international mystery all inform the story. Underpinning events are a heat wave, the Brooklyn housing bubble underway, a gun that goes off, and a smattering of science. A little bit Sophocles, a dash of Shakespeare, and tablespoons of Old Testament go into a brew that is both contemplative and neo-noirish.
Janyce Stefan-Cole is the author of a prior novel Hollywood Boulevard. Her work is included in the Boston Globe bestselling anthology, Dick for a Day (Villard Books), among other publications.
She currently writes for WG News + Arts, and was books editor for FREEwilliamsburg.com; a contributing writer for FLYPmedia, and a finalist for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. Before turning full time to writing, she was a visual artist. She resides with her husband in Brooklyn, NY, and Freedom, NH.
