It’s 1998 in Texas and Becky Whitlaw, widowed mother of three, is worn down in body and spirit. Drinking hard one night to drown her sorrows, Becky wakes up to a house in flames. All three children perish. The fire is investigated and from its evidence suspected to be arson and Becky is convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection.
In 2018 California, Dani Trumball and her husband Doug, who’s recently been made dean of Stanford Law School, settle themselves and their three children in their new home. Dani, a senior attorney at Help Innocent Prisoners Project who now works remotely, finds herself pining for their home back East and the excitement of an office full of colleagues. At a party the couple throws to make friends and get acquainted with some of Doug’s new peers, Dani is introduced to pediatric cardiac surgeon, Chuck Stanger. They bond over each having a sense of their work as a calling. Chuck confesses he belongs to an “‘anti-death-penalty advocacy group,’” through which he learned of Becky’s ordeal, and began corresponding with her. He pleads for Dani to help. Dani, understanding fully how slim Becky’s chances are, is reluctant to get involved. Yet once she lifts the lid off the case, she sees how badly justice has been served. Drawn deeper into the case, Dani struggles to balance her own roles as lawyer and advocate with her personal commitments as wife and mother, while the clock ticks down on Becky’s doomed fate.
An author’s note at the end of BURNING JUSTICE explains that the seed of the story was inspired by a real-life event, and author Marti Green uses her legal expertise to establish a credible variation on that case and a realistic depiction of its investigation. The story stays deeply grounded in its reality, and that’s both its strength and its weakness. Dani is well-portrayed as someone who knows how to play the game: where to bet high, and what to do when her chips are down. She’s good at her job and enjoys her work. Her gaze, like Green’s, is equitable.
Green seems to well understand how the legal system works: sluggishly at times, irresponsibly at others. There are several courtroom scenes and judges’ rulings written in “legalese.” There are no gimmicks such as surprise witnesses, strangers in dark sunglasses unexpectedly called to the stand. The action seems to follow Green’s understanding of legal proceedings. As a result, Dani and her partner Tommy investigate all leads. While it’s realistic that few would pan out, the unnecessary detail associated with the ones that don’t burden the reader who already has an awful lot of names and plot points of which to keep track.
Although the plot, tied as it is to Becky’s fate, has a natural suspense, the story would’ve benefited from a little more shock to its system. Green has drawn very clear lines and colors within them carefully. While the scenes move quickly, the rapid accumulation of so many of them begins to feel like flash cards, each recorded with one essential piece of information: a name and the action with which it’s associated. That action sometimes loses steam in what feel like plot cul-de-sacs, especially in Chuck’s growing feelings for Becky, along with Becky’s scenes alone in prison. Neither of these is particularly interesting nor illuminates the plot in any way, especially because Becky can’t remember what happened the night of the fire.
While Green is on terra firma in scenes from Dani’s working life, she seems to be writing a different story with Dani’s home life. The story trails off in that direction, and while well-written, readers will be puzzled by what all this has to do with the main plot. These scenes mainly show the way Dani’s life is compartmentalized; she dotes on her children, particularly the oldest (and only one readers really see) a teenager who’s being bullied. This particular plot line needed to be better integrated into the main action, perhaps to show how being a good lawyer makes Dani a better mom, and vice versa, otherwise what is the reader doing here in this kitchen? As Green’s written this part of the story, it feels like it should be marked “inadmissible evidence.”
Although somewhat stymied by her fidelity to fact, author Marti Green brings her legal background to bear in BURNING JUSTICE, a suspenseful, thoroughly-researched account inspired by true-life events.
~Michael Quinn for IndieReader