Presenting Artie Cohen, Reggie Nadelson's streetsmart, good-looking New York cop, with a cast of characters including Artie's glamorous girl Lily Hanes, and his gnarly superior Sonny Lippert. Originally from Russia, Artie has a taste for girls and jazz and a secret past. In "Red Mercury Blues" he has scarcely returned from a month's leave and thoughts of quitting when he becomes involved with a case that drags him painfully back into that past. His investigations take him first into the heart of the Brighton Beach Russian mafia, and then deeper into the terrifying world of atomic smuggling and the secrets of the lethal but elusive substance known as Red Mercury.