“Hit or Miss,” a new book by Jeff Markowitz, was released on Dec. 15 and is now available in ebook and paperback editions.
When you’re 21 years old, it can be hard, under the best of circumstances, to balance the expectations of your father and the desires of your girlfriend. For Ben Miller and his girlfriend Emily Bayard, circumstances are far from perfect. Emily’s mother has been murdered. Ben’s father, a detective in Dutch Neck, catches the case. Set against the backdrop of the cultural and political unrest associated with the war in Vietnam, “Hit or Miss” raises questions that were important in 1970 and still resonate today—questions about the rights of free speech and assembly, about the role of protest in a democracy. But the question that consumes everyone in the town of Dutch Neck in the summer of 1970 is personal. Who is responsible for the death of Rosalie Bayard?