Fina Fitzgibbons is the main character of my Brooklyn mystery series. She’s a private investigator, a
twenty- or thirty-some character (depending on the book in the series), married, living in the neighborhood of Vinegar Hill with her NYPD husband, Denny, and their two children. She solves mysteries. All of them murders and most of them taking place in one Brooklyn neighborhood or another.
She carries a large purse filled with the usual stuff—wallet, pictures of her children and husband, keys, tissues, comb, lipstick—plus the tools of her trade. She calls it her snoop bag.
Here she is in her fourth book, The Brooklyn Drop. In the middle of a wintry night, she’s gotten a phone call about a neighbor’s suspicious illness. She’s preparing to go out, and as we all do, she gathers up what she thinks she’ll need:
I shook Denny. He didn’t move.
“Your mom needs us,” I whispered into his ear and stroked it with my lips.
He smiled and continued sleeping.
My BMW was parked a block away, and Denny’s car was in front of our house. “Can I drive your Jeep?”
Magic words. He was up like a shot, dressed, and checking his Glock before I could stuff my snoop bag with the usual—booties, latex gloves, plastic bags, flashlight, magnifying glass, notebook, pen, iPad, and two smartphones.
Why the two phones you wonder? Her husband, Denny, pays for two different phone lines for her. She doesn’t do it, usually, but for safety sake, she’s supposed to hide one underneath a sleeve . . . just in case.
Photo: cover, The Brooklyn Drop. Design, Avalon Graphics.