Book Review: Other People's Rules

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Other People's Rules    
Julia Hamilton
Class/Genre:   Mystery
St. Martin’s, Nov 2000, $24.95, 384 pp.

By the time, Lucy Diamond turned fifteen she was lonely having no friends and parents more interested in her success in her studies than her being a complete child. It is through Mrs. Diamond’s job that Lucy meets Sarah AcKworth, the daughter of an Earl and Countess, as blue-blooded an aristocrat as can be found in the twentieth century. The Earl has no qualms about using his wealth and power to crush an enemy.

When Lucy enters Sarah’s world, the excitement, glamour, and beauty blind her. She wants acceptance and if that means drinking and smoking pot, so be it. Lucy also ignores the Earl’s pedophiliac obsession with young teens including his own daughter. To gain entrance into the inner circle, Lucy sleeps with the Earl. When a teen the Earl covets vanishes without a trace, the elite close ranks against outsiders like Lucy. The police catch the killer. Years later on his deathbed, the convicted murderer recants his confession. Lucy reenters the inner circle, but as a mature adult seeking the truth.

Julia Hamilton has written a riveting, shocking, yet believable tale about the rich and powerful getting away with murder due to their connections. The heroine is initially gullible but matures into a courageous morally upstanding woman willing to sacrifice her marriage and career to insure justice occurs. This disturbing work leaves the reader with a distressing bitter aftertaste about the justice system. Yet the novel leaves hope that books like OTHER PEOPLE’S RULES will force justice to truly become blind.

Harriet Klausner

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