Heart of a Killer
Here’s what seems to be a winning combination: a popular and accomplished novelist, a likable hero, and two themes of overwhelming importance. The result? Readers will likely turn the last page and wonder what went wrong. The main plot involves assisted suicide. A woman jailed for murder wants to be killed and have her heart given to her dying daughter. Officialdom resists, so the case must go to court. Next, computers. They control everything, so someone controlling them can crash an airplane, burn a car, and melt down a nuclear-power plant. All these things—and more—happen here. The plots converge midbook, when Jamie Wagner, the lawyer hired by the prisoner who wants to die, finds himself battling a crazed computer maven. The wisecracking Wagner would be fine in a different novel, but here—in a book dealing with such portentous matters—he’s the wrong man. When things grow ominous, he jokes about his hatred of work and lack of ambition, scuttling the tone and keeping the reader distant from the plot. A good character and a gripping story, but they simply don’t mix. Stick with Rosenfelt, though; he can write, despite this misstep. --Don Crinklaw