Bodily Harm

In his latest appearance, Ben Green, a Jewish, poetry-reading lawyer/investigator in Los Angeles, must track down a murderer who tape-records and photographs naked children as he tortures them, then decapitates them. For Green it is a painful case, dredging up memories of his own daughter, who was raped and left dead by the roadside some years earlier. Attorney Berrenson's ( Special Circumstances ) knowledge of police and legal conduct make the proceedings informative, but his novel jumps from the beginning to the end by revealing in only the fourth chapter that the guilty party is that perfect contemporary villain, a religious cop who believes he's ``delivering the children to God.''p. 76 Even his motive--he was sexually abused by his own parents--is neatly and quickly explicated in a scene with his psychiatrist. With no mystery remaining, it is hard to work up enthusiasm for the trial and the strongly foreshadowed prison escape that results in much bloodshed. A subplot that leads to Green's discovery of his daughter's murderer also lacks suspense, and the inclusion of a love interest for Green and a gratuitous sex scene only add to the formulaic feeling. (June)