Two condensations:

The Cradle Will Fall. An assistant County Prosecutor, Katie DeMaio, investigates apparent suicides of women at the local maternity clinic. The author was widowed and worked full-time. She typed mysteries at her kitchen table while raising 5 children who graduated from college and became lawyers. She went back to school and graduated summa cum laude after flunking her initial exams.

Horowitz and Mrs. Washington. A poignant story of unlikely friendship between a cantankerous old Jew and a soft-spoken ghetto-raised nurse, set in New York City. The author is a street savvy Manhattan native with the wit of self-made Austrian immigrant parents. Denker became a lawyer and writer.