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SEEDS OF DOUBT
by Stephanie Kane
Scribner, November 2004
304 pages
$25.00
ISBN: 0743245571


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

SEEDS OF DOUBT is Stephanie Kane's fourth novel featuring Jackie Flowers, a Denver defense attorney who is dyslexic. The mystery begins as a child is taunted and dared until finally an accident or exhaustion results in his fall from some high place. It is an eerie tale of a child's death that still resonates in the community, 30 years later.

Rachael Boyd, the person convicted of that murder is implicated in a new murder on her release from prison. She is an odd duck as her mannerisms are learned from a life in prison. Rachael's prescience and unnerving eyes make her unusual and uncomfortable company and an unsettling suspect.

Jackie earns the reader's respect when she unexpectedly invites Rachael to be released into her custody until the trial date. The story unfolds as Rachael slowly learns to cope in society thanks to the normalcy of her temporary living situation, so different from her earlier life. We slowly begin to realize how different that earlier life was as Jackie learns more about Rachael's past in the preparation of her defense.

Jackie Flowers is a sympathetic character and maintains good relationships with her colleague Pilar and her professional associates. It is fascinating to see how a dyslexic can organize herself to complete law school and is a successful attorney ­- the law books in her office are there for show, and she carries a yellow pad in the classroom because she is expected to do so.

Kane uses a nice variety of textual materials in the story that add interest. In addition to the straight narrative and traditional quoted dialogue, she also uses newspaper articles, transcripts of conversations and memories and dreams to tell the story. These interrupt the flow of the narrative to good effect, creating temporal shifts between the first and second murders.

SEEDS OF DOUBT is best read as part of the series as some aspects of the story, such as Jackie's family background, relationship with the precocious next door neighbor Lily and her on-again off-again lover Dennis Ross, are perhaps more fully explained in earlier novels. This novel is a great read and is highly recommended as are Kane's earlier Jackie Flowers mysteries, BLIND SPOT, QUIET TIME and EXTREME INDIFFERENCE.

Reviewed by Maureen Battistella, April 2005

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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