cover image Accidental Felon

Accidental Felon

Gloria Wolk. Bialkin Books, $21.95 paper (362p) ISBN 978-0-9652615-5-5

Wolk's taut legal thriller powerfully depicts an innocent woman caught up in the machinery of the criminal justice system. Carly Daniels does data entry for Archer Life Settlements of Southern California. Despite her mostly clerical duties, a federal investigation of Archer Life for insurance fraud catches her in its net. The company specialized in viatical settlements in which terminally ill people sold their life insurance policies for cash. The Justice Department believes that Archer Life routinely bought policies it knew were fraudulent, taken out by policyholders who had lied about serious pre-existing medical conditions%E2%80%94a practice called clean-sheeting%E2%80%94before applying for coverage. Daniels does her best to aid the probe, but is indicted anyway, and faces the prospect of jail, which is especially disturbing given her son's Asperger syndrome. The details of the alleged scheme are clearly conveyed, but the book's real strength stems from its David vs. Goliath battle to avoid an unjust criminal conviction.