Robak's Witch: A Don Robak Mystery - Hardcover

Joe L. Hensley has been a lawyer and a judge in small Indiana towns, and his books about lawyer (soon to be a judge) Don Robak have the smack and tang of elemental truth. They are also full of wisdom, sadness, and wonderfully precise writing that can capture the essence of a character in a sentence. Recovering slowly from the stomach wound he suffered in Robak's Run and separated from his wife and 10-year-old son because of his attraction to violent cases, Robak gets involved in the defense of Bertha Jones, an eccentric herbalist accused of poisoning her teenage niece and nephew. The case becomes a witch hunt in more ways than one, as a local evangelist whips up public sentiment against Bertha and her gay lawyer.

Still smarting from the bullet he took in his gut at the end of his last trial, Indiana lawyer Don Robak's holding on till the first of the year, when he'll ascend to the circuit bench. Meantime, though, he's still vulnerable to a plea from his old law school buddy Kevin Smalley to join him in cozy Madisonville in the defense of alleged witch Bertha Jones, facing death for poisoning her teenaged niece and nephew. It's obvious from the beginning that the killings have something to do with the hysterical condemnations of Rev. Hoskin Allwell, and scarcely less obvious that the late Mary Petrakis and James Smitham were more Romeo and Juliet than Hansel and Gretel. While you're waiting for the less obvious stuff, Robak winds up the case and assumes that judgeship. A lesser effort concocted from familiar ingredients by veteran Hensley (Grim City, 1994, etc.). Even the writing is plodding. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.