In Harry Harrison’s *Make Room! Make Room!*, the detective protagonist is Andy Rusch.
Rusch is a 30-year-old New York police detective living in an overcrowded Manhattan in 1999. He shares half a room with Sol, a retired engineer, while the city struggles with water shortages, food scarcity, collapsing infrastructure, and extreme population density. His police work reflects the novel’s central concern: how ordinary institutions function when resources are stretched beyond their limits.
Rusch is assigned to investigate the murder of Michael “Big Mike” O’Brien, a wealthy racketeer. The case brings him into contact with Shirl, O’Brien’s former mistress, and exposes the sharp divide between New York’s impoverished majority and its insulated elite. The novel follows Rusch alongside Billy Chung, whose actions set the murder plot in motion.
Readers sometimes confuse the novel with *Soylent Green*, the 1973 film it inspired. That movie changes major plot details and characters, while Andy Rusch belongs to Harrison’s original book.