Same ole, same ole (Retribution - Jillianne Hoffman)

Member Name: fizzywizzy

Product:	Retribution - Jillianne Hoffman
Date:	06/09/07 (173 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good plot,plenty of suprises; technical knowledge

Disadvantages: Poor and predictable characters

Chloe Larson is studying for her final law exams in New York City when she is brutally raped by a man who seemingly knows everything about her life, from where she spends each evening down to her favourite perfume. Twelve years later she is known as CJ Townsend and is living in Florida, one of Dade County's top prosecutors, working in a team trying to catch a serial killer who has been abducting, raping and mutilating young women.

When an arrest is made her world is turned upside down; CJ is convinced that the man who stands accused is the man who raped her in New York. What follows is part courtroom drama, part police procedural thriller with CJ having to decide whether to give the case up which would mean revealing her past or carrying on with the case and risk having her past exposed anyway if the accused man recognizes her.

The story bounds along at a fair old pace with little time to breathe despite the fact that the action takes place over a couple of months. The author is yet another American lawyer turned author and it shows; attention to detail is precise and in this particular novel sees the emphasis on the legal system and its intricacies - I felt I learned a fair bit about how the system works in America and found that the author managed to work in a lot of detail quite easily within the dialogue so that it didn't come across as a legal text book.

The characters are easily recognizable to anyone who reads this kind of book regularly and should be seen as an familiar aspect of the genre rather than as showing a lack of imagination. Patricia Cornwell, Karin Slaughter and Kathy Reichs seem to share the same catalogue of characters; the strong ambitious female lead character, well-educated, lives on her own, has trouble committing to long-term relationships and has a strained relationship with other family members. Throw in the love interest, usually a colleague from a partner agency, possibly someone working on the same case and along with him comes a colleague, plain-speaking, considered boorish by some but with a heart of gold. Yes, Jilliane Hoffman understands the formula and has produced a predictable set of characters that brings nothing new to the genre.

The one big problem I had was with the defence attorney, supposedly a ruthless and ambitious lawyer who later undergoes the most ludicrous change in character - comepletely unbelievable!

Just as well then that the story is pretty good with plenty of twists and turns and which, when all becomes clear, you can look back at and say "Of course!" I've been disappointed recently with books that bring in new characters right at the last minute or in which the detectives discover some completely new evidence close to the end; not so Jilliane Hoffman - all the clues are there waiting to be picked up.

It's certainly not for the squeamish but the blood and gore is not gratuitous (fans of the genre might like to know that I would rate this somewhere between Patricia Cornwell and Karin Slaughter in terms of graphic descriptions). Hoffman is economic with her words but manages to get across the horror of the murders pretty well.

The book is quite heavy on dialogue making it easy to read and keeping the pages turning; it's not especially clever but it does make you think and it engaged me from the start. The pages kept turning all the way although I did find the ending a little unsatisfactory.

Overall, it's full marks for the plot but points lost for re-hashing the same old characters. I'm sure there'll be more from CJ Townsend - if that's as predictable as her characters!

Published by Penguin
ISBN -0141015233
544 pages

Summary: Nothing new but a perfectly acceptable holiday or commute read