At first I was wondering if I would ever get into Hostile Witness and then I did. Jose Bates a lawyer who finds herself back in criminal defense after she had given it up. Her client Hannah a young girl who is in a world of mess and has no one and I mean no one who really cares at least until Josie comes along. Hannah's case is high profile because the man she supposedly killed was not only her step grandfather but also a justice on the Supreme Court. (oops). Several twist, and suspenseful until the case is solved we give Hostile Witness a thumbs up. This book was a frustrating read. As a career criminal defense lawyer, and an aficionado of crime fiction, I like the genre. However this wasn't much more than an awkward first draft of a mystery novel, and the outcome was tediously predictable. Our protagonist is a 40 year old lawyer, who feels guilty about winning a big case, after which time her client murders her children. Therefore she refuses herself to a coastal California town, and sets up a "safe" practice dealing with mundane problems of ordinary people. Then her college roommate tracks her down, another former student athlete. She has a 16 year old daughter charged with arson and murder of a retired supreme court justice, the father of her husband. After this point, this book becomes less and less about systematically assembling clues and sorting out justice, and more and more about exploring emotionally disfunctional families and how they go out of their way to hurt each other. I hate soap operas and game shows on television, and in the days before cable and the internet I'd refuse to take sick days at work, crawling in to avoid metaphorical Chinese water torture (tv). This book drags on with the touchy-feely soap opera atmosphere that distracts from the purported plot (crime mystery). There are also some technical mistakes. At one point the courtroom is empty of spectators, and the lawyer son of the decedent gets into it with the defense lawyer and the prosecutor and even the judge. We don't even know if the court reporter took it all down, but even if it was off the record I can't see any judge participating in "dog & pony show" insults and commentary on the merits. That would have created grounds for a mistrial, notwithstanding the fact that the jury wasn't boxed up. Some proofreading issues as well, involving failure to use the subjunctive, missing quotation marks, shortage of apostrophes. Nevertheless the author has talent, too bad it didn't get put to better use.
What do You think about Hostile Witness (2009)?
Fun! And a cheap ebook on Amazon. Better than expected!
—Abby
Found a new series. Am looking forward to book 2.
—libos
Slow moving, nothing special about this book.
—Revol939
fun plot. good characters. worth reading.
—godislove
