From Publishers Weekly
Wallace Barrett is a former star college quarterback with an acting background who is now the first black mayor of Tulsa, Okla. In the prologue of Bernhardt's sixth Ben Kincaid novel (after Cruel Justice), the Barrett family visits the local Baskin-Robbins; a few hours later, everyone except Wallace is dead, and Wallace is the obvious suspect. Caroline appears to have been the classic abused wife, while the couple's two young daughters seem to have been caught up in a violent marital feud. As Wallace's attorney, Ben is forced to grapple with some very familiar snags in the case: there is a nationally televised highway chase, a contaminated crime scene, a bloody shoe print and a jury selection fraught with questions of racial bias. Bernhardt tries to make the story his own with a final plot twist based on an unknown piece of information about a vasectomy and a pregnancy. He also tries to invest the novel with some freshness by way of two subplots. One deals with Ben's single parenting of his young nephew during his sister's apparent disappearance; the other concerns a myasterious stalker who plagues Ben via letter bombs, a car chase and e-mail (there's little surprise, however, when the stalker's identity is revealed). At the end of the novel, Ben appears to abandon the law, but this intriguing turn toward character and away from the headlines comes far too late to redeem this legal thriller from its too obvious echoes of an all too familiar trial. Author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--Ce texte provient de la
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édition.
From Library Journal
Wallace Barrett, Tulsa's first black mayor and a former football star, has it all?including gorgeous wife Caroline and two delightful daughters. Then Caroline and the girls are found murdered in their home following a public argument between Wallace and his wife. Barrett, after being spotted running from the crime scene, leads the police on a chase down the Indian Nation Turnpike, with full media coverage (sound familiar?). As reports flood in of past "domestic disturbances" in the Barrett household, Wallace's violent temper, and allegations of child abuse, Barrett soon becomes the only suspect and calls on attorney Ben Kincaid to plead his case. As evidence, including DNA and blood tests mounts against his client, Ben finds himself entangled in his toughest?and most highly publicized?case yet. In his sixth book featuring Kincaid, Bernhardt (Cruel Justice, LJ 9/15/95) again proves himself master of the courtroom drama. Buy two!?Lori Dunn, Montgomery Cty. P.L., Troy, N.C.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--Ce texte provient de la
Hardcover
édition.
