Under Fire-Margaret McLean

Under Fire
Margaret McLean
Forge, Jun 21 2011, $24.99
ISBN: 9780765328144

Boston firefighters Jack and Andy charge through the black smoke as flames engulf the Senegalese market. They manage to get the owner, Amina and her fifteen years old son Diallo out of the inferno. However, someone shoots Jack.

The Boston Police Department arrest Amina as an arson-murderer. The detectives claim her motive was to collect insurance money since she was unable to make her mortgages. She shot and killed the first responder Jack to cover her torching of her store. Defense attorney Buddy Clancy convinces his niece, Sarah Lynch, who quit as a prosecutor after the fatal shooting of her lover, to defend Amina. Sarah has not been inside a courtroom in the four years since she left the prosecutor’s office. The media and the politicians including the governor hang Amina, which leads to mobs wanting to lynch her. However, as the uncle and niece team begin to find counter evidence, someone needs to insure a conviction even if that means assaulting witnesses for the defense.

This is an exiting legal thriller in which racism plays a significant role in the story line; in fact the jury is purposely hyperbole so that from the left and right are accentuated; perhaps too much. Although implausible incidents occur too frequently detracting from the tale, readers will enjoy Under Fire as justice is not blind or black and white, it is gray as agendas, prejudices and baggage play key roles.

Harriet Klausner