JOPLIN, Mo. —
One of my duties as a librarian is what we call “professional reading” -- keeping up with what’s going on in the profession. I have been known to grumble about professional reading; not the reading part, just the amount.
Of course, it’s not all about what form our future reading will take; library budgets, doing more with less and so on. Some of it is about books. So some evenings, instead of curling up with a novel, I curl up with a book list, a library journal or a three-ring binder full of book reviews looking for new materials for the library.
In my search through the hundreds of reviews written each month, I sometimes (OK, a lot of times) find something I know has to go on my reading list. Such was the case with “GUILT BY DEGREES” by MARCIA CLARK.
You probably know who Marcia Clark is if I pair her with Mark Fuhrman, Johnnie Cochran and, of course, O.J. Simpson. Clark worked for the Special Trials Unit in the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office and was the lead prosecutor in the Simpson trial.
Deciding to draw on her experience, Clark created Rachel Knight and the “Guilt by” series. “Guilt by Degrees” is actually the second book in the series. The first, “GUILT BY ASSOCIATION,” was praised in the aforementioned review, so I had to read it in preparation for the May release of the new novel.
Like Clark, Rachel Knight is a prosecutor in the Special Trials Unit in the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office. Rachel loves the unit, and getting the job was her goal from the moment she joined the DA’s staff. They handle all the tough, complex, high-profile cases.
When we first meet Rachel, she is celebrating a win on a tough murder case with two colleagues, fellow workaholic Jake Pahlmeyer and good friend Toni LaCollier. The celebration is brief and, for this trio, their final one. Before the evening is over, Jake is dead.
Still reeling from the shock, Rachel is assigned one of Jake’s cases, the rape of Susan Densmore. The 15-year-old was raped in her home. Her influential father is a big supporter of the DA and is anxious for an arrest to be made. To help in the investigation, Rachel is able to talk LAPD detective Bailey Keller, her best friend, into getting herself assigned to the case.
They also embark on another investigation as Rachel finds she cannot accept the course the investigation of Jake’s murder is taking. Since he was found in a seedy motel with a dead 17-year-old boy and a picture of the nude boy is in his pocket, the assumption is murder-suicide.
Unable to believe Jake was capable of murder, Rachel and Bailey decide to find out what really happened in the motel and why. As they search for a rapist and a murderer, they find everything is not what it seems. Maybe they are investigating just one case; then again, maybe not.
I thoroughly enjoyed the debut of the series and eagerly awaited book No. 2. This time around, Rachel’s case is one she hijacks from a fellow prosecutor. In the courtroom, awaiting a preliminary hearing for a murder case, she watches the ill-prepared prosecutor fumble his case so badly it gets dismissed.
His indifference to the case, because the victim was a homeless man, enrages Rachel, and she refiles the case herself. With the lead detective in the case assigned to a desk because he, too, was enraged and decked the ill-prepared prosecutor, Rachel gets Bailey assigned to be her investigator.
The first thing Rachel and Bailey must do is identify the victim. Following leads and working through the homeless network they find a name, Simon Bayer, Zack Bayer’s brother. This is the same Zack whose grizzly murder by axe is detailed in the opening chapter of the book.
Are the two cases related? Zack’s wife, Lilah, was tried and acquitted of his murder and then disappeared. Simon never doubted her guilt and continued to try to find someone to bring her to justice. Was the mystery woman Simon was reaching for as he died Lilah and if so, where is she? To solve this complex case, Rachel and Bailey delve into past crimes, search for a mysterious woman and find their own lives in peril.
Patty Crane is a reference librarian for the Joplin Public Library.
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Patty Crane: Former prosecutor’s series enjoyable
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