Dark Justice

January 4, 1999
The eighth in a series of popular courtroom cliffhangers, Bernhardt's newest Ben Kincaid novel (after Extreme Justice) finds the savvy defense attorney in a tiny logging town in the Pacific Northwest. The sinister forces at work behind Magic Valley's Bunyan-esque simplicity emerge when a tree-cutter explodes in anger and kills a local lumberjack--and Ben's old client, George Zakin, is suspected of the foul play. Called on to defend this man again (six years earlier Zakin had been accused and acquitted of an ecoterrorism homicide), Ben reluctantly takes the case. Ben's investigation of the other suspects--a scar-faced drug lord, the mysterious Bigfoot creature often sighted in the thick, dark woods, the leader of a covert logging consortium called "The Cabal" and many a vicious redneck snarling repetitiously about "tree-huggers"--brings Ben into dangerous contact with the Magic Valley's underbelly. The sexiness of Ben's opponent, "stunning young prosecutor" "Granny" Adams, raises the courtroom stakes. But somehow--perhaps because the cranky old hanging judge would rather be fishing--these scenes fail to deliver the drama they promise. Bernhardt juices the suspense with chapter-ending teasers ("The secret would have to die. With her."), but the gratuitous violence and oversimplification of the logging controversy keep the potboiler on medium-high at best.

October 1, 1998
Thrillingly interwoven plots are Bernhardt's forte, a talent he once again demonstrates full-blown in his latest superb legal thriller featuring attorney Ben Kincaid. Six years ago, Ben defended an animal-rights activist charged with murder. Zoom to the present. Ben, in Washington State on a book-signing tour, is arrested for breaking and entering as he attempts to liberate a cat whose owner has sentenced it to unnecessary euthanasia. Ben inadvertently gets involved in a group called Green Rage, a conservationist organization wrestling with the local logging industry in a life-or-death struggle. One of the members of the group has been charged with a horrible murder--and who is the alleged perp? None other than the man Ben defended six years ago. To defend him again, Ben has to go up against prosecutor Granville "Granny" Adams, who, despite her moniker, is attractive and tough as nails. She is bound and determined to win this case. In the meantime, subplots swirl and crash around Ben's feet, but these only serve to enrich the entertainment value of this wonderfully riveting read. ((Reviewed October 1, 1998))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1998, American Library Association.)