The Detective and Dorothy Day

The Detective and Dorothy Day blends detective noir with historical fiction, set in eastern New York in 1975. The story follows Sy Johnson, a Manhattan private investigator hired by a labor union to probe the murder of upstate chemical tycoon Jack Williams. The accused killer is a local union president, but the deeper Sy digs, the murkier the case becomes.

His investigation leads him to the Catholic Worker farm in Tivoli, where he meets seventy-seven-year-old Dorothy Day, the renowned writer, pacifist, and co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement. There he also encounters James, a black Vietnam veteran battling addiction, and his sister Roberta, a singer Sy met the night before.

The murder case expands into a web of environmental pollution, labor unrest, high finance and corruption, complicated further by Sy's romantic entanglements and close brushes with death. From barrooms to a ballroom, and from Brooklyn's backstreets to quiet waters and woodland, Sy finds himself confronting not just killers, but his own conscience.

As he unravels connections between five murders and a world poisoned by greed and guilt, his unlikely bond with Dorothy Day challenges him to seek justice and redemption in a new light.

The Detective and Dorothy Day is both a gripping thriller and a meditation on morality in a world on the edge.

This is the second novel and fourth book by Robert C. Conner. He lived at the Catholic Worker farm in Tivoli, NY, during 1974 and 1975, where he met Dorothy Day.

Conner's previous novel was The Last Circle of Ulysses Grant (Square Circle Press, 2018). He also wrote two biographies published by Casemate: James Montgomery: Abolitionist Warrior (2022), and General Gordon Granger: The Savior of Chickamauga and the Man Behind "Juneteenth" (2013).

A former journalist, he won two first-place writing awards from the New York Associated Press Association for newspapers with circulation between 50,000 and 200,000. Other jobs have ranged from bicycle messenger to drug counselor. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of New York University.

Bob Conner and his wife Barbara have been married for 41 years in upstate New York. They have three adult children and six grandchildren, and remain active in community service.