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NINE
by Jan Burke
Simon & Schuster, October 2002
369 pages
$24.00
ISBN: 0743223896


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Someone is killing the FBIıs Ten Most Wanted criminals and it is up to Los Angeles Sheriffıs Detectives Alex Brandon and Ciara Morton to find the murderers and bring them to justice. This is not necessarily a popular thing to do since there is a great deal of public sympathy with the executioners who are ridding society of very evil people. There might be even more sympathy if the first victim had not been tortured before he was hung upside down over a bathtub and allowed to exsanguinate.

Alexıs memory is pricked by this method of execution. About twelve years before, a serial killer, James Naughton, had killed his victims in a similar manner. But Naughton had been killed by his stepson, so the murderer could not be him.

The other protagonist is Kip Logan, a loner who has adopted a runaway girl who is still very skittish around him. Kip gets a call for help from a friend, and he and his ward must leave their Colorado hideaway and put themselves in danger. The suspense grows as their stories come together and everyone seems to be in danger from the executioners.

The greatest strength of Ms. Burkeıs novel is the characters. Yes, there are quite a few to sort out at first, but they are clearly delineated and very soon the reader sees how authentic and believable they are. And how empathetic. Even some of the ³bad guys² tug at our emotions. We care what happens to these people and that is what creates the fearsome tension in the latter part of the book. Realistic and vivid characters are sometimes not part of suspense novels, but in this book the reader learns to care and hopes for a happy denouement.

The book is firmly set in Los Angeles county. The descriptions bring the reader into the story and make it possible for her to feel she is there as the events unfold. The descriptions are so graphic and so intense that pictures are easily formed in the mindıs eye.

Of course the writing is excellent. Burke is a pro and it shows with every page and every character. The book reads smoothly and the reader is never taken out of the story. The action moves rapidly from the beginning to the end of the novel and the reader really never has time to stop and breath once she climbs on the roller coaster of excitement and action. This is a new direction for Burke and a very promising one. Writing suspense is not always easy, but this book makes it look that way.

There is graphic violence in the book, always necessary and never gratuitous. We do not wallow in violence, but in order to feel the horror of the situation we have to see what these so-called saviors of society are really doing to people. The faint hearted may have problems with this.

And finally it is impossible to read this book without thinking about the question of whether the end justifies the means and the whole issue of vigilante justice. Yes, we would like to see horrendous criminals taken off the streets, but do they deserve the same due process as every other citizen? Would it be better to get rid of them any way possible? Or are we a nation of laws despite the handcuffs that sometimes puts on our justice system? The answer is not always obvious.

Reviewed by Sally A. Fellows, November 2002

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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