Saturday, March 19, 2011

"Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery." Calvin Coolidge


In the close-knit community of Chatham, MA, young men are being murdered without logical reason and with nothing, other than location, to tie them together.

Martha "Marty" Nickerson is an assistant DA in Cape Cod. She feels a high level of accomplishment when the jury finds Manuel Rodriguez guilty of killing college student Michael Scott.

With the guilty verdict in, there is a sigh of relief within the community but before Marty can relax another young man is found murdered. When an autopsy is done, this body has a roman numeral @2 on his chest. But how could this be, with the killer already in jail?

In close communities, sometimes the connections between victims and attorneys are too close and in the second case, Marty has such a close a relationship with the victim's family that someone in her department was assigned the case.

Wondering where the story would go, Marty is asked to accompany the defense attorney to visit the man accused of the second killing. When Marty gets the details and informs her boss, Geraldine Schilling, Schilling is furious and the next day Schilling accuses Marty of working with the defense to undermine the prosecution's case.

Since Schilling has a goal of running for higher office, we now have politics involved. But as to who is killing the men, the author keeps the reader in suspense.

There is a good description of the internal politics of a prosecuting attorney's office. It is also admirable to see that Marty's first obligation is not to put someone in jail for the crime. Marty tells the reader that her first obligation is to justice.

I enjoyed the story but found it more cute than suspenseful. Marty was somewhat unique for a prosecuting attorney but much of the material here has been done before.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1QWI66OSVI8GL/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000F6Z4ZU&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode=

Please check my Amazon review and at the end, if possible, indicate that the review was helpful.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the review. I would probably like the book, but it does sound like others I have read. I like that you use quotes that apply to your reviews. Nice technique!

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