Mistress of Justice by
Jeffery Deaver
hbk out September 02
Published by Hodder
at £18.99
I first came to Deaver through his book The Bone Collector which I thought a
highly original and well thought-out novel. I have not been disappointed by any of
the ones I have read since. And every one has been different in some way. So I was
delighted to find a new Jeffrey Deaver, then disappointed to see it was reprint of a
ten-year-old story - would an early work be as good as prime Deaver? Then I saw that
he had revised it because he now thought it did not thrill in its original format. So, an
almost new Deaver. There was hope.
Taylor Lockwood spends her days working as a paralegal in one of Wall
Street's law firms, and her nights playing jazz anywhere she can. Then attorney
Mitchell Reece asks her to help in locating a stolen document central to a multi-
million dollar case he's defending.
At the top of the firm, Wendall Clayton and Donald Burdick are locked
together in a contest to control the law firm. A firm populated by sycophants like
Sean Lillick, old, time-servers like Ralph Dudley, and high-living Thom Sebastian.
Taylor is impressed by Reece's court-room manner and agrees to help him
clandestinely. Inevitably, she begins to uncover some dirty secrets. Lillick has far
more money than his lowly position would suggest, and Ralph Dudley's niece
performs in a high-class brothel. Everyone is up to something, but what is it? And
how does it link to the stolen document? How does the power struggle in the board-
room relate to any of this? Meanwhile, stalking the night-time corridors is the ice-
pick carrying 'drapery man', who stole the document in the first place. He is unlikely
to allow Taylor Lockwood to find out too much.
Taylor, at loggerheads with her strict and control-freak father, is tempted into
a relationship with the attractive Mitchell Reece. And the drapery man gets closer
and closer. Then Mitchell Reece and Taylor Lockwood are run off the road... Mistress of Justice is delightfully convoluted in its plot, the twists and turns
never letting you settle on one theory of exactly what game is afoot. Nor does it allow
you ever to be quite sure that any character is what they seem. And when a suicide
turns into a murder, and Taylor confronts the apparent killer, you just know there is
going to be another twist in the tail. And there is.
(
Ian Morson
Author of Falconer books and short listed for 1999 Ellis Peters Historical Crime Dagger)
