A STRING OF SHOOTINGS. A list of victims. A wealth of suspects. And it all hinges on one dead man …

It’s been a year since ex-NYPD detectives (and former enemies) Joe Serpe and Bob Healy teamed up to solve the murder of a retarded young man who worked at Joe’s company and prevented the Russian Mafia from infiltrating the home heating oil business on Long Island. Now partners in an oil business of their own, Serpe and Healy are faced with an even more heinous series of crimes: Five oil truck drivers have been robbed and shot to death, their lifeless bodies left to bleed out on the cold and loveless suburban streets.

But the killer should have chosen his victims more wisely. The fourth victim, Rusty Monaco, was another retired NYPD detective—one who once saved Joe Serpe’s life while they were both still on the job—and Serpe won’t let that debt die with Rusty.

As Serpe and Healy dig into the murders of the five Long Island oil truck drivers, they descend through several rings of hell, a hell that isn’t just confined to the Long Island suburbs. Following a trail littered with the bodies of the guilty and innocent alike, they investigate leads from a crime-ridden Indian reservation to a Brooklyn housing project, from a day-old homicide to a nearly forgotten murder that happened in the wake of 9/11. There are reams of evidence, but none of it seems to hang together. What possible connection can there be between a firebrand African-American preacher from Brooklyn and the murders of oil truck drivers in Suffolk County? How is the owner of a failing auto body shop connected? Are Serpe and Healy too busy looking at the wrong suspects that they miss the most obvious suspect of all?

The Fourth Victim is a tale of greed, blackmail, corruption, vengeance, racism, fear, and what righteous men do in the face of a world gone wrong.