BLINDSPOT

A hard-driving assistant district attorney’s unflinching dedication to the law threatens the safety of her beloved daughter in Smith’s legal thriller.

Milwaukee assistant DA Rachel Elizabeth Matthews is the kind of tough-as-nails prosecutor who easily withstands the murderous threats from the punks she’s convicted as they're hauled off to jail. As Rachel proudly observes, she’s “immune” to that sort of thing. That immunity, however, comes at a price: Putting the law ahead of everything else in her life following the death of her daughter Charley’s father has slowly driven a wedge between Rachel and the struggling teen. Even Rachel’s widower father—the man who inspired her to follow him into the law—warns her that cold statutes are poor substitutes for warm human companionship. Beautiful blond socialite Olivia “Liv” Reid befriends Rachel at a gala event and asks to join her book club; Rachel obliges readily enough, largely due to her immediate desire to stick it to Liv’s overbearing and abusive husband, Zach. Rachel soon has more than Zach’s creepy come-ons and threatening overtures to manage: A stalker suddenly pops up in her life, seemingly determined to make her existence a living hell. But why? And who exactly is this stalker? The one thing she does know is that acting like “a rabbit on the run” is “no way to live.” Rachel decides to stop letting her stalker call the shots and instead “go after him for a change, maybe even set a trap.” But the no-nonsense ADA hasn’t always lived according to the letter of the law—Rachel’s got a skeleton in her closet that she’s desperate to keep hidden. Smith’s carefully unfolding exploration of the protagonist’s intricate psyche deftly parallels the rising action as ADA Matthews moves ever closer to unmasking the stalker’s true identity, while her taut, economical prose leaves plenty of room for the revelations to flow freely.

An often crafty whodunit laced with traditional elements of mystery and suspense.