Review: Retribution

This is Hoffman's debut novel, and a very impressive one. The action begins with a brutal assault and rape, in which the victim is left injured so badly that she will never be able to bear a child. At the time of the attack she is a young law student, and the reader learns that her attacker has been stalking her for some time, reading her mail, noting her habits, planning his moves. During his assault he makes it clear to her just how much he has learned. In flight from her terrible memories, the victim moves away from her apartment and starts over in another part of the city. She finds herself unable to return to her studies and begins to subsist on a string of clerical jobs.

We jump forward in time ten years, to the office of an assistant district attorney in Miami. She is working on building a case against a serial killer dubbed "Cupid" by the press. The victims have been young blond women, usually taken from nightclubs, and found later horribly mutilated, their hearts cut from their bodies. Autopies reveal the chilling fact that most of them were alive and conscious when the killer made the incisions which laid bare their hearts. A routine traffic stop results in the discovery of another body, another lovely young woman with her heart missing.

As the investigation unfolds, and the attorney prepares to prosecute the driver of the car with the body in the trunk, we realize that the attorney is the rape victim from ten years earlier. During the first court appearance, we also realize that the man arrested and charged with the "Cupid" murders is her attacker from her law student days.

So Hoffman lays out a series of very intriguing legal dilemmas. Should the attorney reveal that she is now prosecuting someone who raped her long ago? The testimony of the arresting officer is at variance with the facts. How much weight should she give to his account? Some of the investigating officers are led to important discoveries by anonymous tips. Who is tipping the police, and why?

To say much more would be to spoil the suspense. Hoffman succeeds in placing the reader solidly in support of the attorney and rooting all the way for her to prosecute the case successfully. But Hoffman also succeeds in posing the ethical dilemmas in such a way that the reader is uneasy in that support.

"Retribution" is an excellent beginning. I hope Hoffman has more books up her sleeve.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Woodstock - RAM

Book Review: Retribution