Joel Goldman Cold Truth

Cold Truth

Joel Goldman

Pinnacle, Feb 2004, $6.99, 416 pp.

ISBN: 0786014490

In Kansas City, TV news reporters catch nationally syndicated popular psychiatrist Dr. Gina Davenport falling from her eighth floor office to her death. Her local radio station manager Arthur Hackett and his wife Carol hire lawyer Lou Mason to defend their troubled twenty-one year old daughter Jordan, who confesses that she pushed the doctor out the window.

Lou has doubts as some discrepancies exist in Jordan's account of the event and her actions leading to the murder. Instead he wonders whether former felon, the Svengali-like Centurion Johnson, head of Sanctuary, a place for troubled youth that includes Jordan who is living there, is influencing his client. If the answer is yes as he suspects he wonders how to prove this is so when Jordan seems uninterested in helping her own defense.

Though Lou's latest falling in love is fun, Abby Lieberman' "side confession" is a distracter from a solid legal thriller that never slows down until the final attempt on the hero's life. Lou is a delightful protagonist who tries to do the right thing by his client, but as usual ends up in deep trouble just trying to survive. The support cast, both those recurring and those unique to this plot, provide depth to either the investigation or Lou. Joel Goldman provides another fine tale.

Harriet Klausner