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Kaitlin LaMar is a probation officer on the Gang Violence Suppression Unit in Santa Ana, California. She is responsible for monitoring the activities of approximately 45 probationers to ensure their compliance with the terms of their probation. Given the fact that she has been specifically assigned to work with gang members, many of her probationers are younger. A particularly sad case is the 9-year-old by the name of Miguel "Mooch" Esparza, who is in Juvenile Hall on a charge of allegedly murdering Kaitlin's 7-year-old godson. Kaitlin has a soft spot in her heart for Mooch, perhaps too soft, as during the course of this book he threatens her, holds a gun to her head and forces her to jump off a jetty into the ocean. With her other probationers, Kaitlin shows just the right mix of heart and hardness. You need to be tough to deal with the kind of people that LaMar sees on a daily basis, and Board does a great job of depicting these characters. She is helped in her duties by her cop partner, David Nava. They each have a role in working with the probationers. One evening as Kaitlin is walking with her boyfriend, Blaine Stedman, a wealthy yacht designer, they hear a scream. They discover the body of Mooch's mother, Maria (who had had for many years acted as his sister). Maria had seemed the epitome of a woman who worked hard to help support her family, contributing her income to help her parents and working to get a place for Mooch and herself to live as mother and son. There doesn't seem to be any reason why Maria would be targeted to be killed. But as Kaitlin investigates, she uncovers the reality behind the event. I found the revelations around the life of a probation officer to be very interesting. Board really had a handle on exactly what the roles and responsibilities were, and the details were illuminating. She presented LaMar as a character who cared about the people she was supervising, but also didn't allow her to be too soft (except in the case of Mooch, and she should have been harder). Her writing style is very smooth with well-written dialogue. My only complaint is that the book was written in present tense, a style that I find jarring, but that's a personal bias. I was very involved for about two-thirds of the book when it fell apart for me. Kaitlin had a few episodes throughout the book where she felt that Maria's spirit was present. I'm not the kind of person who accepts supernatural elements in their reading, so this made me a little nervous. However, it wasn't overdone so I was willing to go along with it. That is, until she whipped a Ouija Board out of the trunk of her car and had her cop partner help her ask questions about the case. Shortly thereafter, Maria's ghost comes to visit her in her bedroom and repeats the word that she said as she was dying: "Todopoderoso", Spanish for "Almighty" and another incident where the ghost comes along to save the day. Those events put the book beyond my ability to suspend disbelief. Perhaps the reader who has more tolerance for mystical happenings would not find these elements objectionable. I was very disappointed in the book overall. Board lost control of the plot; the villain was obvious from the minute they were introduced; the sex and romance clumsily portrayed. The first book in this series, Angels of Anguish, was exceptional. I was sorry to see the talent exhibited in that book not realized in this sophomore effort.
Reviewed by Maddy Van Hertbruggen, May 2003
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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