Detective Captain Sam Birge has had another typical twenty-hour day. As chief of homicide in a major American city, Birge never stops working. So he’s not too surprised when a call comes in on his car radio as he’s heading home: young man found dead.
Figuring that his long-suffering kvife, Edna, can wait a little longer, Birge goes to investigate. But what he finds is notlyour ordinary street mugging. The body, apparently not the victim of a robbery, lies in the hallway of an old apartment building. Downstairs is a dingy cafe; upstairs are studio apartments, all occupied by artists who insist they know nothing of the murder.
What was young Wesley Gowen doing in the building, and why was he killed? Was the young man just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or was the murder carefully planned?
When the boy’s grieving mother hands over her son’s journals, Birge hopes' they may contain some clue to the killing, but he suspects they’re only filled with the dreams of an unaccomplished poet who died much too young.
As Birge and his Assistant, Lieutenant Charley Hagen, probe Wesley Gowen's past, they unravel a tragic and complex puzzle that touches many lives. Full of wonderful character portraits of people worn down by the burdens of life, Death of a Minor Poet is a superb police procedural which portrays with qompassion and precision the drama of a city cop's world.