Sheldon Siegel, The Confession

The Confession

Sheldon Siegel

Putnam, August 2004, $25.95, 368 pp.

ISBN 0389152121

They are law partners and lovers who were once married but realized they couldn't live together so they divorced. Lawyers Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez agree not to take any high profile cases until their son sleeps through the night. When their friend Father Ramon Aguirre is arrested for killing a female parishioner he asks Mike and Rosie to handle the case and they agree because they won't turn their back on someone they care about.

There is plenty of evidence that points to the priest as the criminal. His fingerprints are on the murder weapon, on her shoulder and on the bathtub faucets. The victim was made to look as if she committed suicide in the bathtub but the coroner rules it a homicide to make matters worse, the victim was pregnant and Father Ramon admits he donated sperm for an artificial insemination. It will take nothing less than a miracle for the lawyers to find the real killer to get the priest acquitted.

Sheldon Siegel is to legal thrillers like Robin Cook is to medical thrillers. This enthralling novel keeps reader attention with one surprise after another bombarding the audience especially during the trial scenes in THE CONFESSION. The relationship between Mike and Rosie add an exotic dimension to this exciting courtroom drama in which the defense and prosecutor interrogation of witnesses makes for an authentic terrific tale.

Harriet Klausner