Matera, Lia. Face Value. Pocket Star Books, 1995.
Reason read: October is to honor William Penn who was a pioneer of criminal justice reform/corrections. He was born in October.
Lia Matera’s Face Value opens with Laura Di Palma describing how an ex-colleague happened to show up at her office-warming party. Of all the nerve for Steve Sayers to show his face at her new law practice when he was the one to turned her mentor against her and worse, got her fired by exposing Di Palma’s pro bono work without the firm’s consent. I was expecting Sayers to be a pain in Laura’s butt for the duration of Face Value, but he quickly disappears from the scene when Laura takes on an unusual case in her new practice. An old friend comes to her for advice about a compromising situation. Quantum physicist turned spiritual guru “Brother Mike” has convinced this friend to explore her spiritually through (you guessed it) group sex with other devotees. While Brother Mike’s followers knew their sessions would be filmed, no one expected their wildest escapades to end up for rent at the local adult video store. Di Palma agrees to look into the case and finds herself involved in a mass murder of six strippers. As the case becomes more complicated Di Palma decides to represent Brother Mike and recruits her old boyfriend for help.
Whenever I meet a new character who is part of a series (which means I will be spending some time with them), I always take note of their personality. Right away I learned that Laura was not good with emotion. She was ab avid hiker and had complicated relationships with ex-lovers.
Music: Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Give Me a Licking.”
Author fact: Lia Matera has a website here.
Book trivia: Face Value was a very quick read but I took my time with it because every character holds a clue to the mystery.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” (p 117).
