THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 23, 1997 TAG: 9702180466
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BILL ROACH
LENGTH: 31 lines
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
BARBARA PARKER
Dutton. 400 pp. $23.95.
Criminal Justice is another sizzler. Barbara Parker, a Miami attorney who has produced three previous courtroom thrillers, builds this one around a principled lawyer named Dan Galindo. Galindo, once a bright young U.S. attorney, has been shoved aside because he refused to put a lying witness on the stand to convict a bad guy.
Now, he steps into a case involving a crime lord/killer, a reckless music promoter and a desperately ambitious young musician - all tied into a million-dollar money-laundering scheme - and a ruthless Drug Enforcement Administration agent who has a score to settle with Galindo.
As the DEA prepares to grab Dan's client as well as Dan, only prosecutor Elaine McHale seems to believe in him. Then Kelly, the musician whom Dan had been seeing, is found slain in his house. Now, Dan not only has to keep his client out of jail but himself, too, and that means solving the murder.
The result is a taut, fast-paced novel with more Miami street action than courtroom clashes.