Book Review: Temporary Sanity

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Temporary Sanity     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Rose Connors
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Thriller   Woman Main Character
Series: Marty Nickerson # 2
Scribner, July 2003, $24.00, 320 pp.

Hector Montero, a convicted pediophile, kidnapped seven-year-old Billy Hammond, tied his arms and legs together with wire, stuffed a rag into his mouth then proceeded to rape and kill the child. The lad’s father Buck identified the body at the morgue. Buck proceeded to the area where Hector was being transported to the Barnstable County jail on Cape Cod and killed him with his deer rifle. The authorities charged Buck with murder in the first degree.

The shooting and the subsequent arrest was caught on tape and shown on television, a situation that worries defense attorneys Harry Madigan and Marty Nickerson. Marty is particularly concerned since this is her first case as a defense attorney after working as an assistant trial attorney for over ten years. When the presiding judge is knifed in chambers and Harry’s archenemy takes up residence on the bench, matters look even more dismal for the defense team.

TEMPORARY SANITY takes the reader from the opening arguments to the jury verdict in courtroom scenes so vivid and intense that readers will feel they are part of the case. Rose Connors can hold her own with such heavy weights as John Grisham, Scott Turow and Nancy Taylor Rosenberg using her expert knowledge of the law to make the case very realistic. It is interesting to see how a temporary insanity plea is used within the legal world and not on a Hollywood movie screen.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner