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Samantha Kincaid has been on a month-long hiatus and is going on her first call-out as a member of the Major Crimes division. Clarissa Easterbrook, a city judge who hears cases involving the City of Portland, is missing. Samantha is called to the Easterbrook house, filled with all the modern gadgets anyone could ever imagine. Her partners from her last escapade, Raymond Johnson and his partner Jack Walker, are the cops on the case. Dr Townsend Easterbrook is an attending surgeon at the Oregon Health Sciences University, and even though this was a Sunday, had spent a 12-hour day at the hospital. He gets home to find his wife and their dog missing. Just after calling 911, he calls Clarissa's sister, Tara Carney, who immediately comes to the Easterbrook home. Just after the dog shows up, running loose in a local restaurant, the manager of Nordstrom phones and agrees to meet them at the store in order to figure out what Clarissa had purchased the day she disappeared and was perhaps, still wearing,. All to no avail. Easterbrook's body turns up and the Major Crimes Division has to find the murderer and prepare a case. In Burke's own words: "Prosecutors have bad days. Our files are filled with death, rape, desperation, and degradation. Even in so-called "victimless crimes," we spend our work hours thinking about acts that could be committed only by pathetic, miserable people who have lost the hope we all need to maintain our humanity. Compare that to fighting over money for a banking client, and it looks like we're doing the heavy lifting. But, in the end, I'm still just a lawyer. I issue indictments, plead out cases, and go to trial. When it comes to the investigation, I might lead the police on procedures. But it's the police who do the work. They're the ones who kick in a door when a search needs to be executed. They're the ones who climb through the Dumpster when a gun gets tossed. And Johnson and Walker would be the ones to visit Clarissa Easterbrook's family members tonight to tell them that their lives would never be the same again. " Burke's second novel brings back some familiar characters and introduces some new ones. She chooses to show us how cases get brought to court and then show us the courtroom during the trial. Each of her two books can be read as a stand-alone. JUDGMENT CALLS is being released as a paperback at about the same time as MISSING JUSTICE is released as a $19.95 hardcover. Buy them both. You won't be disappointed.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, April 2004
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