Perfect Match
Jodi Picoult
(Reviewer - Narayan Radhakrishnan)
2002 Atria Books
ISBN: 0743418727

Attorney Nina Frost gets caught in a sexual abuse case where her son is the victim & learns what it is like when you are the affected.

Sr. Reviewer - Narayan Radhakrishnan writes:

This is a first-rate thriller that redefines the definition of a legal thriller. After the fantastic Plain Truth & the fabulous The Pact - I expected a superior thriller form Picoult - & Perfect Match is magnificent!

Dedicated Assistant D.A. Nina Frost specializes in bringing to book sexual abusers. As a woman lawyer she understands the heinous nature of these offenses & battles hard & fierce for justice, at the same time keeping an emotional distance from her clients/victims.

However, one day she finds that her toddler son, Nathaniel, has been sexually abused, & the shock has left a scar - he doesn't talk. All he does is convey messages in a crude sign language. As an experienced attorney she knows what has to be done, but for the first time, she now truly understands what it is to be the “violated.”

Caring & coaxing, she brings out from Nathaniel the sign for priest, & Nina Frosts' suspicion are cast upon Glen Szyszynski, Nathaniel's Sunday school teacher. DNA tests match semen stains found in her son's underwear with Szyszynski's DNA profile. Charges are filed, but on the day of the preliminary hearing, Nina does the unthinkable - she shoots & kills the abuser.

Some days later, Nina finds out that Szyszynski was not the actual offender - he had once undergone bone marrow transplantation, & the DNA strain in his body actually belonged to the donor - his half-brother, another priest in the same church.

Now the plot takes a turn. Whatever sympathy the jury might have had for Nina, disappears in the light of the fact that she has shot an innocent man. Nina engages defense attorney Fisher Carrington, & what follows is courtroom drama at its best, with a twist in the tale's tail.

The reader is put in the shoes of the jury, as he tries to analyze whether Nina is guilty or not. Perfect Match addresses the sensitive legal question of transferred malice - a situation where a person does an act to kill one, but causes the death of another whom he never intended to kill. The law (in India) prescribes that the same punishment should be given to the accused, as if he had caused the death of the person whom he had intended to kill.

So the case should proceed in the same manner as if Nina had actually killed the person whom she intended to kill. It is in this standpoint that the whole trial progresses, & the author does a great job in keeping the “legalese” thick & strong for both sides.

Not since Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent have I read such a superior legal thriller! The crime of child abuse has been effectively dealt with only by few legal-fiction authors, Richard North Patterson's Eyes of a Child & Jay Brandon's Loose Among the Lambs the only notable exceptions, & Perfect Match adeptly fills the vacuum.

A worthy read, a worthy buy!
(06/02/02)

Narayan
2002©Narayan Radhakrishnan
A RebeccasReads.Com Sr. Associate Reviewer

Reviewer's Bio:
I am a 26 years old lawyer practicing in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. Along with my legal practice, I have finished post-graduate studies for both Business Law & Human Rights. I am a self proclaimed numero-uno legal thriller lover & am the proud owner of all of Grisham's & Turow's novels. I enjoy John Mortimer's Rumpole & relish an occasional Martini & a rare Scot(ch)t-oline with a Patterson on the side.

My work A FICTION OF LAW is now about 500 pages in length & features 500 lawyer authors & 2000 legal thrillers covering a 300 year period - inclusive of entries from the USA, UK, Asia, Europe, China, Middle East etc. Still in search of a publisher.
www.keralatourism.org