Bantam Books (Paperback), ISBN 0-553-58271-2
The FBI yanks assistant DA Mary Crow out of a dear friend's wedding reception shortly before Christmas. Federal judges all across the country have been dying, unobtrusively, until the gruesome beheading of the Honorable Rosemary Klinefelter the previous month. Bewildered at how she could help, Crow soon learns that the killer's next target might be an old family friend. Judge Irene Hannah kept Crow alive after the brutal death of her mother and remains the closest thing to family Crow has.

Although they appear to be accidents or natural deaths, the judges' assassinations in fact mark the efforts of a covert religio-political group to fulfill a grim prophecy. FaithAmerica believes that by assisting the completion of the prophecy, they will succeed in electing their prophet president.

Robert Wurth, a former Army sergeant forced out just before he reached his twenty years of service, runs a military-like camp for troubled teens. He teaches them discipline, conditioning -- and killing. Angry that his last protégé died because Klinefelter's beheading didn't proceed according to the plan, Wurth vows revenge on FaithAmerica.

The FBI assigns Crow to talk to Hannah and get the judge to accept bodyguards or other protective measures. Fearless, Hannah refuses, so Crow stubbornly takes on the role of bodyguard. Then, in an instant, Hannah vanishes from her dentist's office, and the hunt for the kidnappers begins.

FBI agent Daniel Safer sends Crow home after Hannah's disappearance, but Crow slips away from the man ordered to watch over her. Crow heads back into the North Carolina mountains, beginning her own investigation. She finds her way to Wurth's camp, only to end up a captive herself.

Safer and his team believe the kidnappers plan to kill Hannah on New Year's Eve, so the pressure to find both Hannah and Crow mounts as midnight nears. Safer enlists the help of a local Cherokee -- and Crow's ex-boyfriend -- to help search the mountain, but a betrayal puts them in danger as well.

Tightly written and full of suspense, A Darker Justice holds the reader's attention from the first page. Sallie Bissell does a magnificent job of weaving numerous story threads together into an explosive finale.

Jen Foote

Jen Foote recently moved to central Florida, where she is a copy editor and page designer at a small daily newspaper. She is ecstatic to live an hour away from the ocean.

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