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FINAL JUSTICE
by Nancy Kopp
Onyx, April 2002
341 pages
$6.99
ISBN: 0451410270


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

In general, life could be better for Ann Monroe, an attorney who specializes in social justice causes. One year ago, she was dumped, virtually at the altar, by her fiancÈ, leaving her with an unwanted ring and an unworn Vera Wang dress. Now the Lambs of God, an anti-abortion group, and their leader, the Reverend Tremaine, are making life miserable for her clients, Planned Parenthood, in Madison, Wisconsin. The last time she confronted the group, she wound up with a brick to the head. This time, her picture shows up on the Lambs¼ website, embellished with a target, and she is being harassed by threatening phone calls and, more alarmingly, by sinister and foul-mouthed young men. These seem less interested in Planned Parenthood than in the civil suit she is waging on behalf of a student who was the victim of queer-bashing but whose assailants were unaccountably acquitted in the criminal trial. And then there is the problem of the high school valedictorian who falls foul of his school¼s anti-drug policy after furnishing a shot from his epepen to a fellow student on the brink of death from anaphylactic shock. Regardless of all these demands, Ann still has time to teach literacy and pursue a romance with a lawyer recently separated from his wife.

Despite the gravity of these issues, this is not a terribly serious book. The reader will learn little about the inner workings or state of mind of the religious far-right (who for some reason frequently express themselves in obscenities) or about the legal implications of the issues raised by the cases in question, since this is essentially a plot-driven novel. As the author is new to me, I assumed that Ann Monroe was a series character, but this seems to be her first appearance. That being the case, I would strongly recommend a career change to a less stressful practice, like admiralty law or property conveyance, as her present line of work takes far too great a toll on her adrenal glands. She gasps, shakes, shivers, trembles, or becomes sick to her stomach at even verbal violence, which she runs into a fair amount of, let alone the kind that leaves marks.. It is all really far too hard on her, though of course she does rise to the occasion when she needs to. Although it¼s nice to have an attorney standing up for the good guys, I wish this one did not look and sound quite so much like Ally MacBeal.

Reviewed by Yvonne Klein, April 2002

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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