LEGALLY DEAD
Edna Buchanan
Simon & Schuster
Thriller
ISBN: 9780743294775
Edna Buchanan is one of that stellar group of Florida mystery writers who delivers one slam-bang hit after another. After eight successful Britt Montero mysteries, Buchanan has created a unique new character who hits the ground running.
Federal Marshall Michael Venturi is a witness relocation specialist, creating new identities for often unsavory characters whose information and testimony will help bring down bigger bad guys. When he learns of a grisly slaying and a second missing child in the same small New Hampshire town where he located mobster Gino Salvi, his gut tells him that Salvi committed the crimes. Venturi feels responsible for putting this village in harm’s way by placing a sexual predator in a quiet neighborhood. When he tries to persuade the FBI to allow him to follow up on his suspicions, the Feds aren’t willing to relinquish their prize witness, thereby jeopardizing their case.
When Venturi reacts badly to the situation, his superiors force him to take time off. Convinced that the recent loss of his wife and unborn child is leading him to act irrationally, he is put on medical leave and told to take a few weeks to get his head together. He takes that opportunity to go off the grid so he can’t be traced, travels to New Hampshire and takes care of business on his own.
Even though he carefully covers his tracks, his superiors suspect that Venturi is responsible for the ultimate arrest of Salvi following an armored car heist gone bad. He is fired when he rebels further, so he heads to Florida to try to figure out what he’s going to do with the rest of his life. He contacts Danny, a Black Operations buddy from his Navy Seal days, who runs a local funeral home while working undercover for an anti-terrorist organization. Danny invites Venturi to stay in his guest house, where he swims, fishes and wanders the swamps and bayous. There he rescues a suicidal man who turns out to be a high-profile NASA scientist, mortally depressed over a work-related scandal that has ruined his career and his future. He brings him back to his apartment at Danny’s, and together they figure out how to “relocate” the scientist in an entirely new way --- by making him legally dead. He must disappear in a manner that will irrefutably prove his death, meanwhile adopting a whole new identity and moving on with his life.
Venturi is highly skilled at modeling new identities, a relatively simple procedure of creating false IDs, altering appearance through hair and eye color changes, even plastic surgery. Having to produce a body or sufficient DNA to identify remains is quite another thing. Simply leaving a wallet and car keys on the beach and vanishing has worked in a few isolated cases, but with a desperate, high-profile personality, which describes most of Venturi’s clients, authorities may not be satisfied with easily manufactured evidence.
Venturi meets some of Danny’s friends, who have helpful skills of their own. Among them are a female doctor friend of Danny’s wife and Venturi’s former mother-in-law, who turns out to be a genius at not only helping with disguises but is a sympathetic listener and enthusiastic participant in the growing group of people who begin to seek out Venturi and Danny to help them start a new life. Their forensic evidence faking skills grow with each new case. They create death scenarios that run from shark attacks to plane crashes, explosions and fire, each carefully salted with sufficient DNA and circumstantial evidence to stand up to the tightest scrutiny from law enforcement and coroner’s juries.
Then one of their relocation clients is murdered, another nearly killed and a third threatened. The list of people who know about their clandestine operations is very short, so Venturi begins to wonder how anyone could have discovered who and where these people were. When he and Danny start being targeted, and Danny’s family is put in danger, events go from bad to worse.
Edna Buchanan is a master at creating interesting characters with colorful backstories, pulling the reader into the lives of each of the “legally dead” characters as well as the heroes and their families. LEGALLY DEAD brings a brand-new twist on the suspense/thriller scene and leads to anticipation that we will see more of Michael Venturi.
--- Reviewed by Roz Shea
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