Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner
Janie's Law
Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Carroll Lachnit
Class/Genre: Mystery Legal Setting
Berkley Prime Crime, Oct 1999, $6.50, 336 pp.
Attorney Hannah Barlow feels no second qualms when she informs Freddy Roche that she will not take on his case. Though she knows he has rights that should protect him from the harassment of his neighbors, Hannah refuses to help the convicted child molester. His appearance in her office brings back ugly memories of her last case as a police officer. Hannah failed to stop a wealthy father from sexually assaulting his daughter before he killed her.
A few days later, Freddy’s dead. Though Hannah never shafted the pediophile, her guilty consicence forces her to accept Freddy’s mother as a client. The woman wants to know what really happened to her son in light of his being the third sex offender killed in recent weeks. Hannah initially rejects her client’s contention that a serial killer is murdering pediophiles. While on the streets, Hannah sees Jane, the alleged deceased victim from her last police case, not realizing that the girl’s reappearance links her to the current investigation into Freddy’s murder.
Where do the rights of child molesters, abusers, and sexual offenders end and that of society begins? What rights do victims have? Should lawyers reject sexual predators as clients? These questions serve as the focus of Carroll Lachnit’s compelling tale JANIE’S LAW. Wrapped inside a wonderful who-done-it, is a dialogue between the author and her fans that compel readers to think about a difficult social issue. As with her three previous Barlow novels, Ms. Lachnit demonstrates her ability to place at the core of her mysteries a controversial issue. In her writings, Ms. Lachnit believes readers can think and thus she offers no trite resolution to the problem.
Harriet Klausner
Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner
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