Sonderbooks Book Review of Killer Smile

Reviewed July 7, 2004.
HarperCollins, New York, 2004. 358 pages.
Available at Sembach Library (F SCO).
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2004, #3, Mystery and Adventure

I’ve decided I know exactly whose books to read when I’m in the mood for a thriller. Like Dead Ringer, this book by Lisa Scottoline kept me up until early in the morning. I love the female lead characters in her books, and they’re definitely hard to put down.

Killer Smile features Mary DiNunzio, another lawyer on Bennie Rosato’s staff. Mary is the sort of woman who specializes in apologizing, and the book opens with her cowering in fear because of the threats of Premenstrual Tom, a crazy guy who’s trying to get their law firm to take his case. She’s a young widow, and her friends are all trying to set her up on blind dates, but she’s not interested.

Mary’s obsessed with a pro bono case, working for the estate of Amadeo Brandolini. Even though he had lived in America for thirty years and had a son fighting in the army, at the outset of World War II, Amadeo was sent to an internment camp along with other “enemy aliens.” He committed suicide at the camp, and he and his heirs lost his fishing business.

Mary finds herself more and more taken up in this case. She learns that someone wants her off it. Then her office is broken into and ransacked. She takes off to Montana, where Amadeo died, to get out of the way of any trouble. What she finds gets her into far more trouble.

Again Lisa Scottoline has written an exciting legal thriller with a feminine touch. This one has a sense of history, with intriguing facts about Italian-Americans during World War II. She includes a note at the end with copies of her own grandparents’ alien registration cards. Interesting, good, clean excitement!

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Book Reviews by Sondra Eklund

*****Killer Smile*

by Lisa Scottoline