Until Proven Guilty

Christine McGuire

10/4/2002

Kathryn Mackay is the Assistant District Attorney for St. Rita and the surrounding area. She is on call when a young woman's body is found washed up on the shore. The woman had been methodically tortured and killed. Soon Mackay finds herself in charge of the investigation. She has help from the best inspector on the police force. The best profiler in California comes from Sacremento also comes to help them out after a second, then a third body are found.

The killer starts taunting them with encoded messages. They are signed with the figure of a gingerbread man - "catch me if you can!" To make the situation tenser, a local television hotshot knows everything happening in the case almost as soon as the police do. There is a leak in the department to the newsman who is out to make a name for himself in the business.

Mackay finds herself busier than ever. As a single mom, she has a young daughter. She has two other cases in trial she has to finish. She has two men who want to be part of her life. She has a job that is demanding in the normal realm. Now it is stepped up as she runs the investigation for a gruesome, clever serial killer. And she is trying to keep the television newsman from ruining the investigation.

This is one of those novels that sends shivers down the spine. It follows both Mackay as she tries to put the pieces together and the murderer. He is supercilious, smug. He knows he doesn't leave any clues and can't be caught. It is an emotional and mental thriller. It reveals personas that most of us would prefer not to know. The writing kept pulling me in. This is not my preferred type of novel. I can't understand how people's minds could get so twisted. Yet I couldn't walk away from this book. Once I started it, I had to know what happened. I had to find out how this man would screw up and get himself caught. And I had to know if Kathryn Mackay would be alive at the end of the novel or not.

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Notice: Sexual situations and graphic violence