The latest instalment of the Rosato and Associates
series
finds attorney Judy Carrier trying to navigate the hidden
world of undocumented immigrants. Judy has been assessing
her life since her best friend and colleague Mary was
promoted from associate to partner at their law firm.
She's
also noticed that her relationship with her boyfriend
Frank
has been frustrating her more and more lately. In the
midst
of trying to figure out her personal and professional
life,
she gets startling news from her Aunt Barbara; her aunt
has
breast cancer.
When Judy goes to see her aunt, she meets Iris, a woman
her
aunt has recently befriended. Although Judy's mom
(Barbara's sister) is against this friendship due to Iris'
undocumented status, Barbara insists that the friendship
is
real and steadfast, further insisting that Iris be her
primary caretaker after her mastectomy. Before Judy can
make too much progress trying to keep peace within the
family, the police arrive and announce that Iris has been
in
a fatal car accident.
Barbara is convinced that something is wrong. Iris
shouldn't have been on that road, Iris never drove with
her
windows down, Iris seemed troubled before she left for
work,
and that's just the list Barbara can come up with off the
top of her head. Judy agrees to help her aunt find
answers,
but this is more difficult than she anticipates. People
who
knew Iris best are reluctant to talk to outsiders, scared
to
expose themselves. Others are only all too eager to
leverage information in hopes of using it against those
who
are undocumented. Potential witnesses disappear and
scatter
nearly as quickly as Judy can gather evidence and
information, including stashes of money that Iris had
hidden
in Barbara's house.
While Judy gets closer to figuring out what had happened
to
Iris, she becomes increasingly dissatisfied with her role
at
the office and with her relationship with Frank. Further,
she'd like to give Barbara some closure before the
mastectomy. It's difficult to navigate office politics
when
she's suddenly a subordinate to her best friend. And
she's
finding it difficult to be romantically interested in a
man
who seems to need to parent more than be a partner to.
Just
as she's starting to figure out her life, though, she gets
shocking news that changes everything.
As always, Judy is smart, funny, and verbally impulsive.
She handles everything with aplomb, but she uses
character traits that make you root for her rather than
envy
her skill at juggling everything. She undergoes a lot of
personal change and introspection in this book, which
examines a weighty topic, but the author navigates the
topics with sprinkles of well-timed humour so the reader
doesn't feel bogged down with all the seriousness in
Judy's
life and surrounding Iris' death.
BETRAYED is a welcomed instalment in the Rosato and
Associates series,
and it's a great look into Judy's life. I hope future
books
focus more on Judy, as she's a character readers want to
get
to know better.
Blockbuster author Lisa Scottoline returns to the Rosato &
Associates law firm with Betrayed, and maverick lawyer Judy
Carrier takes the lead in a case that's more personal than
ever. Judy has always championed the underdog, so when
Iris, the housekeeper and best friend of Judy's beloved Aunt
Barb, is found dead of an apparent heart attack, Judy begins
to suspect foul play. The circumstances of the death leave
Judy with more questions than answers, and never before has
murder struck so close to home.
In the meantime, Judy's own life roils with emotional and
professional upheaval. She doesn’t play well with her boss,
Bennie Rosato, which jeopardizes her making partner at the
firm. Not only that, her best friend Mary DiNunzio is
planning a wedding, leaving Judy feeling left behind, as
well as newly unhappy in her relationship with her live-in
boyfriend Frank.
Judy sets her own drama aside and begins an investigation of
Iris’s murder, then discovers a shocking truth that
confounds her expectations and leads her in a completely
different direction. She finds herself plunged into a
shadowy world of people who are so desperate that they
cannot go to the police, and where others are so ruthless
that they prey on vulnerability. Judy finds strength within
herself to try to get justice for Iris and her aunt -- but
it comes at a terrible price.
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