DEATH IS DISPOSABLE

A Connecticut socialite finds her vocation running a New York City sanitation garage.

Fresh out of Penn, Anna Winthrop didn’t feel like becoming a doctor or lawyer like her Greenwich sisters or an investment banker like her brother Will. Following her own star, she took the New York City civil-service exam and didn’t balk when the job they offered her involved riding on trucks heaving bags of trash. Now, as Sanitation Supervisor of Manhattan Central District 13, she spends her days making sure Jay and Winston don’t harass co-workers Kelly and Brianna and that well-intentioned Pierre doesn’t back his rig into any other trucks. At home, she gives bottles and cans to Isaiah, the sweet homeless man who hangs around her 43rd Street apartment, annoying first-floor tenant Mrs. Dovner. When Mrs. Dovner sends beat cop Santos Reyes to warn Anna, he realizes that her ministrations to Isaiah aren’t illegal and asks her on a date instead. But even their growing romance isn’t enough to get the police to investigate Isaiah’s eventual murder, so Anna takes on that burden herself, soon discovering a hidden world of homeless folk where looks can be immensely, and tragically, deceiving.

This series kickoff by the author of the Jane Stuart suburban mysteries (Crushing Crystal, 2004, etc.) shows a nice eye for city life, even though Anna’s better at collecting the trash than at connecting the dots.