Mistaken Identity (Hardcover)

However when Alice Connolly, accused of killing police detective Anthony Della Porta, declares that her current counsel is incompetent a week before she is to go on trial and says she wants Bennie to defend her, she's apparently looking for something more than competent counsel.

Bennie goes to the prison to interview Alice, but she's not prepared for what she finds. Alice proclaims her innocence, or course, and says she was framed by the police, but what knocks Bennie for a loop is the fact that Alice looks like a prettier, albeit streetwise, version of herself.

She claims to be Bennie's twin and has some strong evidence to prove it, however Bennie isn't convinced. However there's one person who could prove it one way or another, and that's Bennie's mother, but unfortunately she's not much help, given her mental illness. So Bennie, with a week's notice, has to decide whether she's going to save her self-professed twin from the screwed up defence she's been getting so far.

It's her sister (or is it?) after all, so there's a lot of interesting tactics bandied about to try and save Alice from her appointment with the needle, helped along by the biased rulings and demeanor of the judge. Is there a conspiracy afoot? Was the deceased detective involved in drug dealing? Can Bennie put the personal aspects of the case aside and be the calm and cool lawyer she must be?

When you go into a courtroom in one of Ms. Scottoline's books, it's like you're both observer and participant, prosecutor and counsel for the defense. It also doesn't hurt any that Scottoline can draw you into her characters and make you care about them with just a few words, that she paints scenes on her pages so real, you feel like you're there.

Reviewed by Leeann Douglass

My main problem was the length of this book. A novel is 300 pages or so. At close to 600 pages, this started to feel like a chore to finish, especially since there was so much I felt could've been condensed or omitted to make it more manageable.

It was also hard for me to get into it because I found the character of Bennie so unlikeable. She thinks her client might be the twin she never knew she had, yet she constantly refers to her by her last name? That just didn't sit well with me, nor did the almost condescending way she treated her associates and boyfriend. I also found it unbelievable that someone who was supposed to be so smart and ethical would not only fall for the "you're my twin" bit with no proof, but that she wouldn't walk off the case when she came to know all the horrible things Alice had done. A lot of the events also seemed too contrived and convenient.

Ms. Scottoline really should concentrate on paring down her books. That would go a long way to increasing the star rating.