 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Poppy
Rice - FBI Agent with crime lab, Washington,
D.C.
"Love Her Madly""And I wondered about the comfort that lies in faith. I wondered how comfort could possibly override consideration of truth."
In this new series we meet FBI agent Poppy Rice. When she came on as the new crime lab director she fired all the "lazy louts with their patronage jobs" and hired in new officers, investigators and chemists. When she finally had the lab reorganized she realized that she didn't want just an office job; she wanted to be out investigating. Given that her boss was so pleased with her work-- "Poppy, you turned a sinking trawler -- infested with a lot of rats, I might add -- into one sleek nuclear-powered yacht" --she was basically able to write her own job description. As such she assigned herself the position of "pseudo-District Attorney" with the purpose of reinvestigating some of the cases that may have been mishandled by the previous administration. So when she's watching Dan Rather interview convicted ax-murderer Rona Leigh Glueck, the first woman to be executed in Texas since the Civil War, she notices Rona Leigh's small, delicate wrists and wonders how she ever managed to repeatedly swing an ax. When she retrieves the file she sees a possible error, which may have affected the outcome of the trial. As such she requests to go to Texas to interview Rona Leigh Glueck. How long will she be gone, her boss asks. Ten days. That's all Rona Leigh Glueck has until her execution. When she gets to Texas, she quickly discovers what she's up against. There is a reason that Texas has the highest execution rate; the entire system is ingrained in the citizens as well as the politicians. Even Rona Leigh Glueck is the first to acknowledge that she deserves the death penalty and is not asking the governor for a stay of execution even though she's a changed woman now that she has found Jesus, ridding her "DNA" of Satan. Indeed, she is a far cry from the tough mouthed teenager who bragged about the "pop" she got swinging the ax. Now she's demure and, well, ladylike. She knows, she's got a better chance of stay because the governor might not want to kill a "lady" than because she's found Jesus. No matter how Poppy tries to impress on her that she can only help if there was a legitimate oversight in the court proceedings, Rona Leigh isn't biting. Rona Leigh's view is that if they made a mistake "Well, then they'd kill me all the faster. Matter of pride." Poppy Rice doesn't make any headway with Rona Leigh's husband either; Rona Leigh is married to the prison's chaplain. He's so impressed with the work Jesus has done with Rona Leigh, he's not at all able to think about the possibility that maybe she was innocent in the first place. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
While Rona Leigh
has a huge group of followers rallying in support of a stay of execution
(mostly "dogooders" and "outsiders"), within Texas there
are a whole bunch, most in the political and legal system, who feel that
if the system convicted her, then she must be guilty. And the fact that
the bible advocates "an eye for an eye" well then, it's clear
that the death penalty is the right punishment. They can't understand why
Poppy's trying anyway. Even if she does find something, in the state of
Texas no appeals are heard after 30 days from close of trial. The parole
board has the jurisdiction to order a stay, but there's no future in that
for its members are appointed by the governor. And the governor's not going
soft just because it's a woman this time. The interesting thing is the quote
at the top of this page, refers to what Poppy thinks after the prison warden
begs off giving a personal view on Rona Leigh's guilt, by saying he "respects
the justice system of the great state of Texas." Not that the quote
doesn't sum up many sides of this debate.The
more Poppy Rice investigates, the more she's convinced that despite Rona
Leigh's confession, that there's something not right about this trial. Nonetheless,
the execution day arrives and that's when the whole plot gets completely
twisted up. Enough said; you have to read this. It's brilliant. The end
of the novel convinced me that the title was absolutely on target if the
author meant to quote from the The
Doors song of the same title (which is now stuck in my head!).
In Love Her Madly, Mary-Ann Tirone Smith evenhandedly covers the emotional pros and cons of the death penalty against the quirks of the Texas legal system. In the interview she says that she believes that a genre novel can successfully have substance and she's proven to be up to the task. Besides the death penalty, there are subtle other attitudes that she expresses. For example, Poppy's assistant leaves work every day at exactly at 5:01 to pick up her kids; Poppy, although no child lover herself, totally accepts that this woman has a life outside her job AND is competent while she is at work. But don't think for a second that because there might be a conscience to this story that it drags along. It's written with fast dialogue, a lot of humor, good strong characters and a very original plot. I'd say it's a real page-turner, but I found myself going backwards at times because I had to read "a good one" out loud. Poppy Rice is a sharp and witty narrator; and, her observations of Texans are just plain irreverent. (Though deep down I think she's a wannabe Texan - she keeps buying their clothing.) "Texans have such a sense of humor. As opposed to couth." Well that might just explain Poppy Rice as well. (Reviewed 01-26-02)
Amazon readers
rating: |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Bibliography (with links to Amazon.com):
Poppy Rice Series:
(back to top) About the Author: Mary-Ann
Tirone Smith is the author of five previous novels, including, most
recently, An American Killing, which was chosen as a New York
Times Notable Book. She has lived all of her life in Connecticut except
for the two years she served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon.
|
©1998-2003 MostlyFiction.com |
from
7 reviews
