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Berkley Prime Crime
January 2003
Featuring: Chloe Newcomb
256 pages ISBN: 0425188892 Paperback (reprint)
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Mystery
Victim Advocate or Victim Witness? Chloe Newcomb defines
her job in the County Attorney's office as "helping
victims of violent crimes through the criminal justice
system in any way I can." Actually, there's much more to
that than meets the eye. The description of "victim"
stretches to include not only the muggee or even the
murderee. In Chloe's past experience the people she is
assigned to help in "whatever way that she can" includes
those affected by a disaster, even an innocent bystander
who has witnessed the event. And since she moved to the
small desert town of Dudley, Arizona, she learned very
well that disasters aren't limited to the cities. Chloe's current assignment is to notify the family of a
local judge, who has disappeared, and whose body is
subsequently found at the ruins of a deserted hotel in a
ghost town near Dudley. She finds the family to be a
living illustration of the description "dysfunctional."
The widow seems to have been on the verge of collapse
before her husband disappeared, her live-in mother is an
evil-tongued shrew, losing no opportunity to worsen the
atmosphere. The couple's daughter, away at college, has
cut off all communication with her family (something Chloe
can hardly blame her for), and the pre-teen son is a
bewildered, angry child. A victim advocate doesn't seem to
be what this bereaved family needs. However, Chloe feels
she can stretch the definition somewhat and see what she
can do to solve the mystery of the judge's murder--not
only who killed him and why, but why in such strange
circumstances? She has her own reasons as well - her
friend Nate, a young journalist has disappeared from
Dudley after telling Chloe that he had uncoveredsome
information about the judge that would "blow this town
apart." Now she fears for his life. Meanwhile, she is
beginning to feel that she needs a victim advocate
herself, because not only Nate, but her lover Craig has
vanished. The county police are investigating the judge's
death; it's Chloe's job to be her own victim's advocate,
seek out the late judge's estranged daughter, and more
important, locate lover Craig and friend Nate, both of
whom, she learns have secrets of their own.
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