ParaNormalRomance.org

"absolutely fantastic legal thriller"

The assistant district attorney for Barnstable County on Cape Cod believes heart and soul that Manuel Rodriguez is guilty of murdering Michael Scott, a bright college student with his whole future ahead of him. She is so convincing that a jury eventually finds Manuel guilty of murder in the first degree.

One year after Michael's death on Memorial Day, a second person is murdered, a nineteen-year-old Navy man home on leave. A roman numeral II is carved on his chest just as the number I was carved on Michael's chest. Assistant DA Marty Nickerson thinks the same killer murdered both men, but her superiors dismiss her concerns until a third person is murdered and the Roman numeral III is carved on his victim. Marty knows she must do something to trap the serial killer before anyone else gets killed.

ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY is an absolutely fantastic legal thriller. Readers get an up close and personal look at the judicial system as seen through the eyes of the protagonist, a woman who goes from being an idealist to a cynic over the course of the novel. Rose Connors is clearly a gifted storyteller.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted July 5, 2002

Rose Connors brings a fresh voice, a dynamic storytelling power, and a passion for the law to her compelling crime fiction debut.

Martha "Marty" Nickerson is a lawyer who truly loves her job. As an assistant D.A. for Massachusetts's Barnstable County, which includes all the small towns on Cape Cod, she speaks for the victims of crime and their families, and sees the system as a means for doing right.

The case of Manuel Rodriguez is a prime example. Rodriguez is accused of brutally murdering a college student, a kind young man who had a bright future. Marty has worked hard on this case; as the mother of a teenage son, she identifies with the murdered boy's grieving parents. Her case against Rodriguez is so solid that even public defender Harry Madigan -- the champion of the Cape's underdogs -- expects a conviction. And, on Memorial Day, exactly a year after the crime, the verdict comes in: guilty as charged. Justice prevails.

Then, with Rodriguez behind bars, another body turns up in disturbingly similar circumstances. Did Marty and her colleagues target the wrong man? Her supervisor -- Geraldine Schilling, who aspires to be the county's first female D.A. -- refuses to reopen such a high-profile case. Why should she? The prosecutors played by the rules and won big. But Marty fears that the real killer will strike again.

With her career on the line and lives at stake, Marty must rely on her own moral compass, legal savvy, and gut instinct as she matches wits with a twisted killer. The system itself is on trial as Marty tries to serve Justice, not merely the Law.

Only an author with years of courtroom experience could add such riveting authenticity to a novel that asks important questions and provides surprising answers. Rose Connors's Absolute Certainty introduces a new crime-writing star.