13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment — James 2:13 Randy Singer knows how to spin a mystery. As a trial attorney, he gets us inside some of the fine points of “legalize” and brings court room scenes to life. As a Christian, he is a master at seeking a balance between righteousness and mercy and in the end, there really is not one of us so terribly good, except God. Nor is there one of us so terribly bad that God’s redemption is not greater still. His characters are idealistic and flawed and the lines between “the good guys” and “the bad guys” are sometimes blurred. He shows us all what a mixture of bad and good that we all are, and his twists shed light on the immensity of infinite hope in the midst of hopelessness. Jamie Brock is a hard nosed, uncompromising, tough-woman prosecutor. I like her rough scrabble approach to forging ahead with her agendas. That she has agendas, however, is part of an arrogance and iron fisted mentality that causes cracks in her armor. Mace James, antithetical to Jamie in almost every way, is an ex-convict, defense lawyer, professor, and one of the major thorns in Jamie Brock’s side. He is instrumental in the Innocence Project. This is an actual organization that works to prove the innocence of wrongfully convicted men and women using DNA testing. Mace’s energy and determination are dramatic to the extent that it is sometimes himself he finds hanging from the cliff. Then there are the high rolling lawyers with lots of clout in low places that throw a monkey wrench in the entire court system leaving true justice a beleaguered contraption. Added to all these pieces, there are whole theories of lie detector relevance and the science of “memory manipulation”. Singer tackles all of these elements, with a tension that seems untenable until the plot snaps us into a snarl of unpredictable outcomes. In Singers’ dedication, he speaks of one of his own cases that inspired this book and acknowledged “The Somerville Girls—Ginger, Alita and Sara- [and their] unrelenting pursuit of justice.” Singer goes on to say in this dedication, “Your father was a good man.” I like his inclusion of The Innocence Project in this plot, which highlights the plight of the wrongly accused. And I also like Singer’s parting words. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” -Romans 12:21 absorbing legal drama that addressed all kinds of issues in the course of the book. I liked the way we saw things through Jamie's eyes---both what she thought she knew and where she was being duped. Her struggle with forgiveness and following her conscience in spite of injury to herself were painfully realistic. It was slow getting started but the pace accelerated in the last third of the book.
What do You think about Laatste Bekentenis (2000)?
the ending I did not see coming just like many other of randy singer's books.
—Analice
Loved it. Can't wait to read another by Randy Singer!
—carolarcipreti
