Southern Cross by Patricia Cornwell

In Southern Cross, Cornwell takes us close to the sometimes zany (but always threatening) experiences of big-city police, in a story of corruption, scandal, and robberies that escalate to murder. The setting is Richmond, Virginia, where former Charlotte police chief Judy Hammer has been brought, by an NIJ grant, to clean up the police force. Reeling from the recent death of her husband, and resented by the Richmond police force, city manager, and mayor, Hammer is joined by her deputy chief Virginia West, and rookie Andy Brazil on the most difficult assignment of her career. In the face of overwhelming public scrutiny, the trio must find the link between the desecration of Confederate president Jefferson Davis's statue and the brutal murder of an elderly woman.