T.B. Pasko’s debut novel “Knights on the Graveyard Watch” is the inaugural book in the 7th Precinct Series. It’s set in the fictional western Pennsylvania city of Port Isley.
Officer Danilo Venko is a self-described “fossil” with a flip phone. He doesn’t accept free coffee in diners. Venko is eligible for retirement in less than two years, but he’s not particularly ambitious; when he’s offered the chance to take the sergeant’s exam, he has to think about it.
Venko is assigned to the graveyard shift of the 7th Precinct, with roll call at 11 p.m. It’s known as the worst shift in the worst precinct. Venko usually works alone, but he’s just been assigned a trainee, Marcus McGhee. Venko gives McGhee his standard lecture that includes no social media on the job, which McGhee has trouble following. He instructs McGhee in police lingo, both official and slang, and tells the sad story of a desk sergeant with an obsessive disorder…