Verdict in Blood - Softcover

Bowen, Gail

3.81

426 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0771014899 ISBN 13: 9780771014895

Publisher: McClelland & Stewart Ltd, 1999

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Joanne Kilbourn investigates the death of Judge Justine Blackwell, who is battered to death in a public park

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Review:

Joanne Kilbourn is a 51-year-old professor of political science, broadcaster, mother, lover, and amateur crime solver based in Regina, Saskatchewan. She's an original and immensely appealing character, totally believable in all her roles. Author Gail Bowen has supplied such a convincing array of details about her family, friends and the landscape they inhabit that we slip into Joanne's life as easily as knocking on a neighbour's door.

The plot of this sixth book in the series is also strong on family and friends: when a tough judge, Justine Blackwell, suddenly softens up after 30 years on the bench and supports a prisoners' rights group, attacks from her three angry daughters make her doubt her own mental competence. Judge Blackwell turns to an elderly teacher and mentor, Hilda McCourt, for advice. McCourt is staying with her friend Kilbourn when they both get the news that Judge Blackwell has been battered to death in a public park. The ex-prisoners (and especially their explosive leader) seem to have reasons to want Blackwell dead, but so do the Lear- like daughters, especially a former rock star and a discredited psychiatrist.

Helping Hilda sift the evidence, and then having to deal with another brutal attack, Joanne is also caught up in the psychological problems of the fragile 15-year-old nephew of her policeman lover. In all the turmoil, she still has time to become a grandmother, a scene described with as much honest emotion and artistry as the rest of Bowen's engrossing book. Other Kilbourne outings include: Deadly Appearances, A Colder Kind of Death,and A Killing Spring. --Dick Adler

About the Author:

With her Joanne Kilbourn mystery series, Gail Bowen has become “a name to reckon with in Canadian mystery letters” (Edmonton Journal). The first book in the series, Deadly Appearances, which was published in 1990, was nominated for the W.H. Smith-Books in Canada award for best first novel. It was followed by Murder at the Mendel (1991), The Wandering Soul Murders (1992), A Colder Kind of Death (which won the Arthur Ellis Award for best crime novel of 1995), and A Killing Spring (1996). Gail Bowen is also head of the English Department at the First Nations University of Canada.
From the Hardcover edition.

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