The Judge

At the start of Powell’s melodramatic thriller, Walter McNeil, who has served 16 years as a judge in D.C.’s superior court, is kidnapped at gunpoint as he’s walking home one evening. Earlier in the day, McNeil visited the grave of his wife, who died 13 years earlier and for whom he still mourns. Haunted in more recent years by the disappearance of his daughter, who was six at the time her mother died, McNeil has reason to believe that his kidnapping and his daughter’s fate are connected. McNeil’s freedom now depends on the help of DA Amanda Perkins, who’s bitter over their past professional relationship. Powell (Two Weddings) puts her legal knowledge as a practicing D.C. lawyer to good use, but readers should be prepared for some awkward prose (“After her aunt left, Amanda realized that although Aunt Julia could never take the place of her mother, she was the closest and the best support she could dream of having”). Information becomes repetitive—retold though dialogue, court hearings, and internal monologue. [em](BookLife) [/em]