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.

Ardennes Thrush is an award winning movie star who has suddenly and mysteriously quit acting at the height of her fame. She is in Hollywood, at the Hotel Muse, visiting Andre, her husband, who is a world-renowned director and is at work on his latest movie. Ardennes, a contemplative woman, is a bit of a voyeur, and as she watches the comings and goings in the hotel, she begins to realize that something is strange; perhaps she is being stalked. When a box of dead flowers arrives she calls the police. And when the detective arrives to investigate, their attraction is immediate, powerful, and quickly carnal.After their first encounter, desire, guilt and fear combine in Ardennes, and the tension rises in the strange, labyrinthine Hotel Muse. Then her stalker arrives at the door of her suite, pulls a gun, forces Ardennes to leave and locks her in a closet. While the detective searches for the actress, we watch rapt as Ardennes, in the darkest of narrow straits, not only tries to...