Scottoline, Lisa. Killer Smile. Read by Kate Burton. Harper Collins, 2004.
Reason read: I forgot to finish the series started in December of last year in honor of Pennsylvania becoming a state. Somehow I let this one fall off the list.
Mary DiNunzio works for Benny Rosato’s law firm as an associate. Mary’s latest pro bono case is on behalf of the estate of an Italian-American interned in Montana during World War I. Amadeo Brandolini committed suicide during his internment and the family wants to sue the government for reparations. DiNunzio’s mission is to sort out the legalities of Brandolini’s estate, but ends up righting a long-forgotten carriage of misjustice. What starts as a simple estate case turns complicated when people start dying; people who had dared to talk to Miss DiNunzio.
For comic relief, DiNunzio’s boss keeps sending Mary on dates with impossible men. I appreciated how Scottoline wove this side story into the bigger plot.
As an aside, Mary DiNunzio sometimes annoyed me. Lawyers are supposed to be somewhat smart. I found it irksome that Mary did not know where to find Montana on a map, she did not know what an engineer does for a living, could not identify a marlin, and she had no idea what quantum physics was. I’ll forgive her for not knowing the difference between a bow and stern of a boat. but am I making an assumption that lawyers are supposed to be savvy and book smart?
Prophetic vision: in my copy of Killer Smile there are a series of book club questions. One of them is “Do you feel safe in your country?” Killer Smile was written in 2004. Let’s ask that same question twenty one years later.
Author fact: Did I already mention that Scottoline was a trial lawyer? I am pretty sure that I did. She graduated from law school in 1981. The other fact is that Scottoline is really funny in her interviews.
Narrator fact: Kate Burton is really good!
Book trivia: Scottoline was encouraged to bring the story of Italian-Americans interned in Montana after learning the history of her grandparents’ experiences. She even shares photographs of their alien registration cards. Scottoline wanted to bring that lesser known history to light.
Killer Smile is Scottoline’s eleventh book.
BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Big Ten Country: The Literary Midwest: Pennsylvania” (p 25). Pearl mentioned this was one of her favorites.
~*LunaSea*~ 