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The Red Light Goes Out: Part One: The Setup
Paperback
Series: The Red Light Goes Out, Book 1
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Aug 9 2025
Pages: 104
Weight: 0.24
Height: 0.22 Width: 5.00 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
Detective Frank Rodriguez thought he was investigating a simple murder case when he found Anna Bailey's body in a San Francisco warehouse. A young woman killed execution-style, her death dismissed by federal authorities who seemed more interested in covering up the crime than solving it. But Rodriguez's instincts told him this was bigger than a random killing-and his instincts were right.
What began as a routine homicide investigation quickly spirals into Rodriguez's worst nightmare. The deeper he digs into Anna Bailey's murder, the more he uncovers a vast international trafficking network that reaches into the highest levels of law enforcement. Federal agents die under mysterious circumstances. Evidence disappears from police custody. His own partner, Detective Jimmy Cook, is murdered for getting too close to the truth.
Rodriguez finds himself caught between corrupt federal officials who want the investigation buried and a shadow organization called the Division that claims to fight international crime beyond the reach of traditional law enforcement. Recruited by the enigmatic Victoria Cross, Rodriguez undergoes intensive training to become David Martinez-a corrupt ex-cop willing to work for the criminals he once hunted.
His mission: infiltrate the network responsible for Anna Bailey's death and the systematic trafficking of thousands of women across the Americas. Led by the brilliant and ruthless Michael Kozlov, this organization has corrupted police departments, federal agencies, and congressional oversight committees. They operate with impunity because they own the very people tasked with stopping them.
As David Martinez, Rodriguez descends into a world where moral lines blur and survival requires embracing the mindset of the criminals he's fighting. He stages assassinations, manipulates federal investigations, and works alongside cartel operatives while trying to preserve some core of the man he used to be. Each assignment takes him deeper into Kozlov's network-and further from the idealistic cop who believed justice could be achieved through legal channels.
But Rodriguez's greatest challenges aren't external. The more time he spends as David Martinez, the harder it becomes to remember Frank Rodriguez. The psychological toll of deep cover work threatens to consume his identity, his marriage, and his moral compass. His wife Maria lives in constant fear while federal protection that may itself be compromised. His handler Victoria Cross pushes him toward increasingly dangerous assignments that blur the line between law enforcement and criminality.
Part One climaxes with Rodriguez's discovery that nothing is what it seems. The Division itself may be compromised. Victoria Cross might be working for foreign intelligence services. The trafficking network he's infiltrating could be a testing ground for intelligence operations designed to probe American vulnerabilities. And Michael Kozlov-the criminal mastermind Rodriguez has sworn to destroy-may be several moves ahead in a game Rodriguez is only beginning to understand.
By the end of Part One, Rodriguez has learned that fighting sophisticated international crime requires methods that traditional law enforcement cannot provide. He's discovered that the corruption reaches deeper than he imagined, that the enemy is more dangerous than he feared, and that victory might require sacrificing everything he once believed about justice, law, and the price of protecting innocent lives.
The network has been discovered. But Rodriguez is about to learn that knowing your enemy and defeating them are very different things.
And in the shadow war he's entered, the distinction between criminal and cop may be the first casualty of a conflict that will test the very foundations of American democracy.
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