Second Time Around

Book 9 in the John Keegan Mystery Series

The Second John Keegan Retro Novel

Two detectives—one a rising star, the other weighed down by past missteps—are forced together in the waning days of the 20th century. It’s late 1999, and New York City’s homicide division stands at a crossroads: embrace new technology or cling to the old ways that built its reputation. Detective John Keegan finds himself partnered with Rick Calhill, an ambitious and condescending detective who views Keegan’s recent struggles as weakness. Keegan, still smarting from the “partial failure” of his first case, sees this team-up as punishment, especially when their boss privately asks him to keep an eye on Calhill.

Their case seems straightforward at first: a convenience store clerk is murdered, presumably during a botched robbery. But when a critical VHS surveillance tape vanishes, the store’s owner refuses to cooperate, and unsettling incidents hint at something far more sinister. As Keegan painstakingly follows traditional leads and Calhill wrestles with personal demons, both men realize they’ve stepped into a complex web of lies—one that tests the limits of old-school gumshoe tactics against the promise of new digital tools on the brink of Y2K.

Second Time Around plunges readers back into an era when detectives debated the very tools of their trade, and trust between partners was often the scarcest resource. For Keegan, this is more than a memory—it's a turning point that will inform the future of his career and the legacy he leaves for his family. At stake is not just the truth behind one murder, but the path the department—and Keegan himself—will follow into the new millennium.