A Darker Justice

Penzler Pick, November 2001: One of the last year's most interesting debuts was Sallie Bissell's In the Forest of Harm, which introduced Mary Crow, an assistant district attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, who is half Cherokee. Crow had some unfinished business in that book. Her mother was murdered and Mary discovered the body, but the murderer was never brought to justice. She also had residual feelings for an old beau, Jonathan Walkingstick, with whom she resumed their on-again, off-again affair.

At the start of A Darker Justice, Mary once again is in Atlanta when she is called away from a friend's wedding to be told that her mentor and friend, Judge Irene Hannah, may be the next target of a vicious killer who is murdering federal judges. When the judge refuses to accept help from the FBI, the feds ask Mary to intercede on their behalf so that they can put agents on her land to protect her. Hannah will have none of this, but does accept Mary's offer to stay with her as a bodyguard. Then, in one brief moment, she is abducted from under Mary's nose. In a race against time, Mary and FBI agent Dan Safer must try to find her before she, too, is killed.

In an equally compelling parallel story, we meet Tommy Cabe and Willett Pierson, who attend Camp Unakawaya in North Carolina. Their life at the camp, which is part military, part orphanage, is hell under the rule of Robert Wurth. The lives of Tommy, Willett, and Wurth will intersect with that of Mary Crow in an explosion of violence when many of Mary's questions about her mother's murder and her relationship with Jonathan will be resolved.

While I was a great fan of her first book, Bissell has written a second that is even better. --Otto Penzler