Wrongful
Death
A
David Sloane Mystery
Robert
Dugoni
Touchstone
(Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-4165-9100-1 (1416591001)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-9100-9 (9781416591009)
Publication Date: April 2009
List Price: $25.00
Synopsis (from
the publisher): Just minutes after winning a $1.6 million
wrongful-death verdict, attorney David Sloane confronts the one case
that threatens to blemish his unbeaten record in the courtroom. Beverly
Ford wants Sloane to sue the United States government and military in
the mysterious death of her husband, James, a national guardsman killed
in Iraq. While a decades-old military doctrine might make Ford's case
impossible to win, Sloane, a former soldier himself, is compelled to
find justice for the widow and her four children in what is certain to
become the biggest challenge of his career.
With little hard evidence to go on, Sloane calls on his friend,
reclusive former CIA agent turned private investigator Charles Jenkins,
to track down the other men serving with Ford the night he died.
Alarmingly, two of the four who returned home alive didn't stay that
way for long, and though the mission's wheelchairbound commander now
works for a civilian contractor, he refuses to talk. The final -- and
youngest -- soldier is also the most elusive, but he's their only shot
at discovering the truth -- if Sloane and Jenkins can keep him alive
long enough to tell it.
Meanwhile, Sloane isn't the only one on a manhunt. As he propels his
case into a federal courtroom, those seeking to hide the truth threaten
Sloane's family, forcing his new wife Tina and stepson Jake into
hiding, where they become the targets of a relentless killer. Now
Sloane must race to uncover what really happened on that fatal mission,
not only to bring justice to a family wronged but to keep himself and
the people closest to him from becoming the next casualties.
Review:
Robert Dugoni's second legal thriller to feature David Sloane, Wrongful Death,
has the Seattle attorney with an unblemished record taking on a case
with seemingly impossible odds of winning.
Sloane, who has just won a million dollar plus wrongful death verdict,
is approached by a woman who wants him to take legal action against the
United States and its military in what she believes is the wrongful
death of her husband, James Ford, a National Guardsman who was killed
in Iraq. Whereas a wrongful death verdict can be proven and won in a
civil case, it is for all intents and purposes impossible to win the
same verdict against the military by virtue of the “Feres
Doctrine.” This age old doctrine specifies that when an
inductee takes the oath of enlistment, he or she swears to protect the
Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and
domestic. At that same time the inductee (and/or any member of their
family) also forfeits their right to sue the government or the
military, or any superior officers therein, for any injury or death
which incurs “incident to service”, even if it
could be proven that those superior officers acted negligently or
deliberately to deprive the inductee of their Constitutional rights.
Sloane, a former wounded member of the military himself, feels
compelled to take the case and find some justice for James Ford and his
family even though it is clear in his mind that he would in all
likelihood lose.
This explosive novel effectively blends a fictional account of an event
in Iraq with headlines ripped from today's news. Five men of the
National Guard from Seattle had been called to duty and sent to Iraq
where they were part of the same company. On a mission to deliver food,
cigarettes and other items to the soldiers in the field of battle, four
of the men were injured, one was killed. James Ford, the dead soldier,
had pulled their captain from a collapsing building to safety before
dying; the captain’s legs were paralyzed for life. All
received the Purple Heart. At the time, the four surviving men gave
almost identical accounts of the actions leading up to and including
the death of Ford. But can this be possible? Sloane knows that it is
highly unlikely. But before he can talk to all of them, one committed
suicide and one was murdered. A third man was killed shortly after
Sloane talked to him, and the fourth now works for the corporation that
had contracts in Iraq providing a conflict of interest. In the
meantime, Sloane and his family are threatened with violence if he does
not stop his inquiry. Will he be able to uncover the deceit, obtain
justice for the death of Ford, and still keep his family out of
harm’s way?
An exciting, moving tale of loyalty, deceit, friendship, duty, greed,
and valor, Wrongful
Death is an exceptional novel
that not only ranks among the best of its genre, it is among the best
books to be published this year.
Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Wrongful Death and to Touchstone for providing a copy of the book for this review.
Review Copyright © 2009 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Have you read Wrongful Death? How would you rate it?
Mysteries in this series ...
The Jury Master
Warner Books (Hardcover),March 2006
ISBN-10: 0-446-57869-X (044657869X)
ISBN-13: 978-0-446-57869-1 (9780446578691)
Wrongful Death
Touchstone (Hardcover), April 2009
ISBN-10: 1-4165-9100-1 (1416591001)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-9100-9 (9781416591009)
Omnimystery
keywords for Wrongful Death
...
Location(s) referenced: Seattle, Washington.
