This study guide was created using the following version of this book: Nicieza, Fabian. Suburban Dicks. Titan Books. 2021.

Suburban Dicks tells the story of Andrea Stern and Kenny Lee and their combined pursuit to solve the murder of Satkunananthan Sasmal who was killed at a gas station. Andrea comes upon the crime scene with her children. Her previous work as a profiler leads Andrea to get a closer look at the crime scene. The scene is contaminated when one of her children urinates. The police state during a press conference that the murder was likely because of Satkunananthan’s involvement with drug dealers. However, Andrea knows the police are lying because of what she was able to see at the crime scene.

Andrea had stepped away from her work as a profiler with the FBI to focus on her family. Andrea has four children with her husband Jeff and another on the way. Andrea meets with Kenny, a former high school classmate who won a Pulitzer early in his journalism career. However, since then, he has fallen from grace. Andrea longs to be able to solve a crime, and Kenny wants to redeem his reputation. Together, Andrea and Kenny begin to see the pieces as to why Satkunananthan’s was murdered fall in place.

In doing so, Andrea and Kenny uncover a deep-seeded conspiracy involving the police and other city officials. Several minority-owned properties have been denied requests to install swimming pools in a residential area that was once farmland. Andrea begins to suspect that there is something buried on the land. She gets permission from homeowners to search the property. Gradually, Andrea and Kenny are able to uncover several pieces of a dismembered skeleton scattered all over the area.

Andrea enlists the help of Ramon, an FBI agent who was once Andrea’s great love. Ramon is able to identify the remains as Cleon Singleton, a black farm worker who disappeared fifty years earlier. Andrea and Kenny start to unravel an elaborate conspiracy handed down through generations. When Andrea meets with Jennifer Guilfoyle, Andrea learns Cleon was murdered because Cleon was a black man involved with Jennifer, a white woman. Jennifer’s father murdered Cleon and died years earlier. Other men in the community helped hide Cleon’s body and cover up the murder, including Bradley Dobeck, the former police chief of West Windsor.

While Andrea and Kenny are able to uncover the murder of Cleon Singleton, they struggle to piece together why Satkunananthan was murdered. Kenny becomes increasingly frustrated that the FBI and police involvement in Cleon Singleton’s murder is isolating Kenny from the case. Kenny wants the inside scoop. He wants to be the first to report on it, but the authorities keep Kenny from releasing any information.

With arrests being made of the individuals involved in the Cleon Singleton conspiracy, Andrea narrows down her suspect pool to two men in Satkunananthan’s murder: Bennett Dobeck and Bradley Dobeck. Andrea lacks the evidence she needs to determine which of the men committed the crime. Kenny begins to notice changes in Benjamin Dobeck’s behavior. Since Kenny and Benjamin knew each other in school, Kenny reaches out to Benjamin. When new evidence is discovered, Andrea realizes Benjamin killed Satkunananthan to protect his family’s secrets.