Watertown’s Dewitt Henry, an award-winning novelist, will speak about his new book, Top Cop Kills at a Literary Tea at the Watertown Library on May 10. The event features other Watertown authors, including Kathleen Spivack. See more information in the announcement about Henry’s novel, below.
DeWitt Henry, an award-winning novelist and long-time Watertown resident, has published a new “documentary” novel, Top Cop Kills.
Placed in the post-Prop. 2-1/2 Watertown of the 1990s, the main characters are Grady, incumbent Chief of Police since the 1970s, and the new Town Manager, Davis, a younger man who has first replaced a failed Treasurer and then been drafted by Town Councilors to replace the latest in a series of Managers who have been unable to keep the town from near bankruptcy. Davis now calls for budget cuts just as Grady’s department needs new cruisers and extra officers to police the town’s new malls. In defiance of town and state laws, Grady uses confiscated drug cash, plus sales of drug property to buy the necessary cruisers. Now, it is the Manager’s job to discipline, if not fire him.
Novelist Eileen Pollack has commented: “A fascinating look at the power struggles, grievances, feuds, and bizarre shenanigans that bubble beneath the surface of small-city government. As a new resident of the town in which this gripping, well-researched novel is set, I was amazed at all I learned about local history—and human nature.”
Henry and other local authors will have books for sale and signing at Watertown Free Public Library’s “Literary Tea” on May 10, 2-4 p.m.
Professor Emeritus at Emerson College, Henry is the author of 15 books including poetry, fiction, lyrical and meditative essays, and a trilogy of memoirs. He was the founding editor of Ploughshares, the influential literary journal that operated out of a Waverley Avenue storefront for a number of years.