This book wants to be a complicated, twisty mystery but it fails. While the separate story lines are not impossible, they aren't put together well. The prominent characters are weak, the characters with potential are left on the sidelines. The author gives background on several, but when she fails to utilize the characters you feel like you wasted your time in learning more about them.
This book might pass as a soap script, but not much more. ( )

In this novel, Carolyn Sullivan, a probation officer and law student, has to help her brother Neil get out of trouble. An artsy type, Neil calls Carolyn to tell her that his girlfriend was found dead in a pool. After she finds out a family secret, she begins to have doubts about Neil's innocence. All the same, she is determined to help her brother.

This was a solid if unspectacular novel. The writing was competent and professional. There were no major plot holes in the novel. At the same time, there was nothing especially Earth shattering about it either. It was a fairly pedestrian thriller with nothing to distinguish it from many of the other thrillers that I have read recently. Although entertaining, this wasn't a deep read.

Carl Alves - author of Blood Street ( )

I agree with the 2 previous reviewers, the story line got a bit convulated and improbable, and ended with alot of unresolved "loose ends" . This is a good "mindless" read... ( )

I used to love Nancy's books, but feel that the quality of the story lines are just not as good as they used to be. Storylines seem to be a bit far fetched. ( )

Sullivan's Justice is Nancy Taylor Rosenberg's second novel featuring probation officer Carolyn Sullivan, and it is on a par with its predecessor: it is neither good nor bad but just average. The happy medium may have been okay for Goldilocks and the porridge, but in writing, it is a bit of a letdown.

In this story, Sullivan is assigned to do a sentencing recommendation for Raphael Moreno, who has been convicted of multiple murders including his own mother and sister. Moreno is a nasty character who seemingly has no qualms about using excessive violence. Meanwhile, Carolyn's brother Neil is accused of murdering his girlfriend; his alibi, however, is that he was with another woman, the sociopathic Melody. While some very incriminating evidence does point to him, other clues points to Melody and still other ones points to a serial killer.

As in the previous book, woe upon woe piles upon Carolyn. Besides the issues with her brother and with Moreno, she is snowed under at work, her relationship with her lover Paul is endangered by Melody and she finds out a shocking revelation about her own father.

Rosenberg writes well enough to keep the reader entertained, but the healthy amount of suspense is not enough to hide this book's flaws, the biggest of which are reliance on coincidence. Not only is it coincidence that the crime Neil is accused of would be linked to Carolyn's big sentencing case, it is a stretch beyond plausibility that Neil's current girlfriend would also be an ex-lover of Paul.

With a better writer, these sorts of problems may be overcome (then again, a better writer would probably not have these problems), but Rosenberg isn't that gifted. Superficially, she seems okay - that is, she seems to know how to construct this sort of book - but at least this book (and its predecessor) lack any real oomph. I suppose there is virtue in reading an average, three-star sort of book, in that it makes you appreciate the good stuff even more, but I cannot really recommend Rosenberg when there are a lot of better books out there. ( )