Into the Fire

Quinn Newberg, high-powered Las Vegas defense attorney and labeled the “legal magician”, is representing his sister Annie for the murder of her abusive husband who she suspected as also molesting her 13 year old daughter Sierra (his step-daughter), proclaiming that the terrible abuse Quinn and Annie endured as children triggered this temporary act of insanity which resulted in a bullet hole through the head of her husband, son of suspected racketeer and casino operator Richard Hoffstetter Sr.

On the other side of the states in Virginia, Catherine O’Rourke, known to her friends as “Cat”, has written about the trial in Las Vegas and is now covering the serial kidnappings and eventual murders committed by the “Avenger of Blood” for the newspaper, creating a stir when she is challenged in court by prosecuting attorney Boyd Gates to identify her source for the leaked information known only to the police. Instead of revealing the detective who has provided the secret knowledge, she spends a couple of days in jail for contempt of court until her attorney Marc Boland gets her out.

To complicate matters Cat has started to see lethal visions of scenes and scriptures which are terrifying her with their distinctive images. Once she reveals these to her confidential source, both of them are amazed to learn her visions tell of things only the killer known as the Avenger of Blood could know. Fairly quickly she is suspected of the kidnapping of the three missing children and is incarcerated for the gruesome murder of one of the missing men after he is found with a particular injury she described as seeing.

Quinn Newberg is the attorney of choice for insanity pleas, and against her attorney’s better judgment, Cat insists on bringing him onto her defense team.

In keeping with the current trends, which you may recall Jim Bell referred to as the “cross-cutting style used in current cinema”, the chapters are short, the timing is tense, and, lo, we have another legal suspense novel from attorney/writer Randy Singer titled By Reason of Insanity. Since some of my favorite authors have had their new novels released in 2008, I’ve consumed a delicious smorgasbord of reading for several weeks. You should recognize by now I’m a big fan of legal suspense/mystery/thriller novels, not to mention political/military thrillers, and just plain contemporary thrillers/mysteries/suspense stories.

This hardbound beauty of a book published by Tyndale is quite a specimen. The black, green, and white in the cover art extends to the interior of the book, a green inside cover and page leading to black paper with white word divisions for the five titled sections of the story. The inverted and backward letters of the font visible on the cover, an introductory page, and on the section pages serve to add a dark foreboding as you enter the story.

Those of you who know me know I love long novels, prefer long novels, relish long novels, and even write long novels. Long is better in my world. This novel ends up at 379 pages in a full 6 x 91/4 trim size with a template which affords a lot of words. My kind of book in other words. And since I enjoy Randy Singer’s writing, it was a must read for me. The unfortunate part about this story is that Quinn has a few very unlikable qualities, not unlike Ty Buchanan in Jim Bell’s newest novels, but in certain instances Quinn is less charismatic. And since he was the victim of horrid abuse in his childhood, I really wanted to root for him. I got the feeling during a few parts of the story that Randy didn’t quite know what to do with Quinn—as if the character was a bit of a stranger to him. And in keeping with this character’s persona, the hint of a turnaround at the end seemed a bit disingenuous only because we hadn’t really gotten a full dose of his underlying strength of character except in rare snippets. So when the psychiatric expert Quinn uses, Dr. Rosemarie Mancini, reveals the core of who he is to Cat near the very end, it seems a bit too tidy. Adding to that, Cat isn’t particularly lovable either in spite of her personal tragedy, but we sense that she is getting shafted by the legal system so we are inclined to root for justice. We see the changes in her as a result of her incarceration, and we begin to believe she is redeemable.

The only other difficulty for me was the budding romance between Quinn and Cat. While it seemed plausible, it wasn’t given enough story time so it came off a bit clumsy for two worldly people in dire circumstances. However, given their attorney/client arrangement, some of that was necessary and understandable. I just would’ve liked to get more from the inside of Quinn Newberg.

Anyway, there are all kinds of events to make us fear for Cat and designed to make the reader wonder if not her, then who? It’s an ugly, bumpy ride and we hope she survives it intact. Another vision comes at just the right time, but some might think it too convenient. It’s almost as if someone decided the story had gone on long enough and needed to wrap up quickly. The end result seemed hurried to me after all the curves and twists.

The final line of the novel which belongs to Quinn is dead on perfect, though.

It’s a good story, and I liked the book. I’ve read seven of Randy’s novels, and I’d put this one somewhere in the middle, one of my favorites being The Cross Examination of Oliver Finney.

Father, thank you for all of Randy’s talents. You’ve gifted him in so many ways. Thank you for his love of storytelling. I pray you would continue to bless him with new novel ideas and provide the time he needs to write them. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.