Judith Kelman The Session

The Session

Judith Kelman

Berkley, Jan 2006, $24.95, 368 pp.

ISBN 0425205568

She loves her job working as a therapist on Riker's Island and the small victories mean more to her than the money she would make in private practice. After working with Jeannie for months, the inmate who hid under her cot and hardly said a word marches in to P.J.'s office and tells her she is getting married. Seeing no harm in allowing that to happen even though it wouldn't be legal, the ceremony is marred by a fire alarm drill that upsets the inmates. After things calm down and the patients are settled down, Jeannie is found murdered and P.J. is fired for allowing the ceremony to happen in the first place.

Through her former boss, she meets a woman who believes P.J.'s talents shouldn't go to waste and refers clients to her until she can get a job in the forensic field of psychology. When she goes to Jeannie's funeral she meet's her late patient's son and Aunt Lottie who believes the husband Charlie Booth killed her. Lottie shows the therapist a scrapbook of pictures chronicling Charlie's abuse of his wife and son. Unable to think of a little boy in that monster's care P.J. decides to find the proof that Charlie is a killer so the little boy will be taken out of his care and winds up almost becoming the murderer's next victim.

The heroine will endear herself to readers as she goes against the advice of her twin sister, her ex-husband, her former boss and the police to get justice for Jeanie and freedom from fear for her son. When she finds that she doesn't have the evidence to put Charlie away, she takes the little boy into her home because Lottie is in the hospital and there is no one else to keep him safe. Her courage and determination will insure fans will want to read more adventures starring this heroine. Judith Kelman has written a riveting, exciting crime thriller.

Harriet Klausner