Search - Conflict of Interest

From Publishers Weekly: "Rosenberg (Buried Evidence) rolls out a new character ... in this crime drama about the manipulation of a developmentally disabled young man accused of robbery. The latest in the New York Times bestselling author's string of female crime stoppers is Joanne Kuhlman, a prosecutor in Southern California trying the case of three childhood buddies who held up a 24-hour market. One of the men, Ian Decker, has a learning disability that makes it questionable whether he even knew that his friends, the rough-and-tumble Rubinsky brothers, were committing a crime. Decker's attorney finally convinces Kuhlman that justice would be better served by having the young man testify against the Rubinskys. By that time, however, Decker has not only disappeared but an anonymous caller to his mother says her son has been killed and buried in the mountains outside Los Angeles. As Kuhlman struggles with the case, she's also dogged by personal problems: her 15-year-old daughter gets pregnant, her son is feeling abandoned, her former husband is in jail on charges of child stealing and embezzlement and she longs for the steadying touch of a good man....Rosenberg's portrayal of Decker as a young man without the intellectual armor to make it in the world is touching at points..." Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Good, fast read.

Another great murder mystery from bestselling Nancy Taylor Rosenberg. A jigsaw of vicious betrayal and innocence lost. She finds herself feeling empathy for a defendant--and trying to unravel a robbery and several murders while dealing with her own personal problems of a husband arrested for embezzlement and kidnapping her own children whom she only recently found with the help of an investigator.

An interesting story with good personal conflicts and well constructed characters.

Back cover says author "keeps the surprises coming until the last page". but I read the last page, and it didn't seem too surprising.

Joanne Kuhlman is a razor-sharp Assist. D.A., the kind of prosecurtor who shows no mercy to the guilty and gets her conviction. That changes when she finds herself in the unfamiliar position of feeling sympathy for a defendant-a young man accused of armed robbery and of trafficking in an ingenious new weapon more dangerous than any Joanne or the police have ever encountered. And when Joanne feels herself becoming attracted to the defendant's handsome defense attorney, she knows she is placing her career in grave jeopardy.

Nancy writes good page turners. This is another one. You'll lkie it.