Kevin Flynn, Relentless Pursuit

Relentless Pursuit: A Story of Family, Murder, and the Prosecutor Who Wouldn't Quit

Kevin Flynn

Putnam, Mar 2007, $25.95

ISBN: 039915406X

In 1993 Katrina Hawkins was only thirteen when she and her mother Diane Hawkins were brutally murdered in their Washington DC home. Still, even with the horror of the killer cutting out Katrina's heart, no one would do more than a superfluous investigation as these were two poor, inconsequential nobodies; that is proven when they were buried in Maryland with Diane having no marker as her family could not buy one for her and her daughter. However, federal homicide prosecutor Kevin Flynn, a father of a little girl at that time, was (and still is) haunted by the killings even as his father was dying from cancer. He needs to bring justice to the Hawkins extended family. Ultimately with the help of Detective Dean Combee, who was stunned by the domestic violence that took two seemingly innocent lives, they find the killer.

This is a deep, moving and graphic account of the real investigation into the murders of the Hawkins females. However, the well written true crime book is much more as Kevin Flynn makes a heartfelt plea that all of us must do much more to stop domestic violence, especially against women and children. His RELENTLESS PURSUIT provided some closure for the family and for himself, but Mr. Flynn knows this is one case that he too will take to his grave; so will readers after this harrowing case of the "prosecutor who wouldn't quit."

Harriet Klausner