Jilliane Hoffman, Last Witness

Jilliane Hoffman, Last Witness - It has been almost three years since a serial killer terrorized the citizens of Miami and it was largely due the brilliant prosecution of assistant state attorney C.J. Townsend that William Rupert Bantling was found guilty and sentenced to the death penalty. An anonymous telephone call had a police officer stop his car and open Bantling's trunk where the cop found the body inside. They had enough cause to get a warrant to search his home where plenty of evidence from his other fourteen victims was also found

C.J. knew going in that the officer didn't have probable cause to search the car but she wanted to try him and find Bantling guilty because he raped her continuously for four hours. Everyone who knew about the tainted evidence entered into a conspiracy of silence but now there is a new serial killer operating in the Miami area and his victims are linked to the trial of William Rupert Bantling which means C.J. is in danger.

Jillian Hoffman's thriller is on par with the works of Patricia Cornwell, Nancy Taylor Rosenberg and Barbara Parker. C.J. has never gotten over the assault and rape that occurred three years ago and it is affecting her relationship with Special Agent Dominick Falconetti of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. It takes the protagonist a while to figure out what is happening but she lacks the evidence and doesn't have a clue who is behind the murders. LAST WITNESS chillingly demonstrates what is wrong within the justice system.

Putnam, May 2005, $24.95, 368 pp.

ISBN 0399152458

Harriet Klausner