Bad Boy Beat

Bad Boy Beat

by Clea Simon

Released May 7, 2024

Boston Standard journalist Emily - Em - Kelton is desperate for a big story. As a new reporter Em covers the police beat, which has her responding to every crime that comes across the newsroom scanner. Despite the drudgery and the largely nocturnal hours, it's a beat that suits her - especially with her affinity for the low-level criminals she regularly interacts with and what she considers a healthy scepticism for the rules.

But she's sick of filing short news briefs about random street murders that barely merit a byline, and when she sets out to cover yet another shooting of a low-level dealer, she begins to wonder if these crimes are somehow connected.

With not much to go on but her instincts, Em sets out to uncover the truth behind these sordid crimes. But the more she investigates and uncovers a pattern, the more she digs herself into a hole from which she might not come out of alive…

Clea Simon grew up in New York, before moving to Cambridge, Massachusetts to attend Harvard. She fell in love with the area and lives in nearby Somerville with her husband and their cat, Thisbe. She is the author of the Dulcie Schwartz, Theda Krakow, Pru Marlowe, Blackie and Care and, most recently, Witch Cats of Cambridge mystery series as well as a number of grittier standalone mysteries.