Unlike Darlene O’Hara, the fictional detective at the center of his novels, Peter de Jonge has opened Milano’s only once. “For research,” he said, sitting in the century-old dive bar on East Houston Street in Manhattan early one recent morning.

New York Police Detective Darlene O’Hara starts most workdays with an 8 a.m. vodka and grapefruit juice in a dive called Milano’s that’s not far from the Homicide South headquarters in the Lower East Side. O’Hara admires the view from Milano’s — “the delicacy of the light and the lovely sense of remove, both from pedestrians hustling by on Houston and from time” — and, more to the point, she believes that “a generous pour on an empty stomach provides a measure of perspective.”

There was a time when Peter de Jonge was a best-selling author, but he quit that gig.

He’s now a thriller writer with a just-released new book, “Buried on Avenue B.” As the second in a series starring NYPD Detective Darlene O’Hara, the book has been well received, but sales are nowhere in the league of, say, James Patterson.