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A team of officers is moving in on an apartment in a routine drug bust when things go horribly awry and LAPD Homicide Detective Kate Delafield is shot in the shoulder. As it turns out, the bullet was fired by one of her own team. Even though it appears that the shooting was accidental, Kate is removed from duty and put on leave until a psychologist gives her the OK to return to work. In truth, this is more of an injury to Kate than her physical wound since she is expected to reveal details of her private life. Kate is a lesbian living with her life partner, Aimee, a fact that she would prefer not to be known among her co-workers. Little does she know, but others are beginning to peek into her closet. Kate's mind is taken off her problems when a fellow officer by the name of Luke Taggart requests that she be his defense rep. Tag is in disgrace on the force, mostly because he broke the "Code of Silence" to report on some internal funny business a few years earlier. This earned him the hatred of many. Now it looks like he shot an unarmed man. By department policy, he has the right to select any other officer on the force to aid him in his defense, and he selects Kate. She's initially repelled by him, only to begin to find some merit in what he is saying. He witnessed a drug deal and then saw the buyer grab a woman and pull her into a destitute spot known as "Apparition Alley". When Tag went into the alley, which was a dead end, all he found was the body of another man. The other 2 people had disappeared into nowhere. The official line is that he is a rotten cop who pursued an unarmed suspect into a dead-end alley and blew him away. Tag is certain that he is being set up by the cops. He also feels that his former partner was killed by cops. According to Tag, they made it look like a convenience store robbery, but Tony Ferrara was killed before anyone even tried to rob the place. As Kate begins to investigate Taggart's stories, she discovers that Tony was gay and that he had been planning to out himself on the job. This was a difficult and courageous decision, because the LAPD was a deeply homophobic organization, and his life would have been hell as a result. Kate also finds out that Tony put together a list of hundreds of other gay and lesbian cops who were still closeted, and her name is at the top of the list. It was his plan to make this list public. Was he killed because of his sexuality? And was Kate shot by a fellow officer because she is a lesbian? Taggart is an infuriating person to try to help, because he often withholds information from Kate or deliberately misdirects her. In the end, though, she uncovers what really transpired, and it's a shocker. She's also faced with a major moral decision when she finds out where Tony's list of gay and lesbian cops is housed. Should she reveal it as Tony intended? Or should she continue to protect the privacy of hundreds of people, including herself, and perpetrate the ongoing mistreatment of people with a different sexual orientation? Forrest has done an extraordinary job of building a complex plot that ultimately surprises the reader. The book is a solid police procedural with a well-grounded lead character. Forrest excels in several other areas as well. She depicts the Los Angeles setting perfectly. She also integrates real historical events into the story which gives the book a feeling of reality. The narrative has many layers, each of which contributes to creating an excellent book. Highly recommended.
Reviewed by Maddy Van Hertbruggen, January 2003
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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