In 1947 New York, television is still new enough to feel like the future. Then a man is murdered live on the air.

Civic reformer Cyrus Baxter has spent three years gathering evidence that municipal construction contracts are being rigged. During a televised forum, he announces that someone seated beside him is involved. Before he can reveal the name, Baxter drinks from a water glass, collapses under the studio lights, and dies while the city watches.

Former safecracker Blake Carter knows the machinery of corruption better than most. Since leaving prison, he has built a precarious career recovering evidence, finding witnesses, and solving problems respectable people cannot handle openly. Baxter's death leads him and his sharp-eyed partner, Mary, into a case where every detail has been carefully managed.

The other panelists drank from the same pitcher, yet none of them became ill. The dinner served before the broadcast was prepared under unusual instructions. A kinescope recording may contain movements and sounds no one noticed during the live transmission. And behind the poisoning lies a network of contractors, officials, lobbyists, and intermediaries who have spent years ensuring that city money reaches the right hands.

Working alongside a wary police inspector, Blake must trace the poison through television studios, private townhouses, city offices, and the hidden financial architecture of postwar New York. But the closer he comes to identifying Baxter's killer, the clearer it becomes that the murder was not merely intended to silence one man. It was designed to protect an entire system.

Signal Poisoning launches the Blake Carter Mysteries, a hard-boiled historical detective series about corruption, recorded evidence, second chances, and an investigator who understands that the quietest clue is often the one someone worked hardest to hide.