Dying for Justice

Dying for Justice: A Detective Jackson Mystery
L. J. Sellers
Spellbinder Press
Charleston, South Carolina
2011
ISBN: 978-0-9832138-3-3
310 pages
$ 11.99
"Gina opened her eyes, taking in the white blanket and blue-scrub nurse. Her first thought was: This is a hospital. Her second thought was: Someone tried to kill me."

When someone has been in a coma for two years and they suddenly awake to full consciousness, we consider that to be a highly unusual miracle. After asking for water, Gina immediately told her nurse that someone had tried to kill her. Her nurse called the police so that they could investigate whether this was an attempted murder or as previously thought, a suicide.

Detective Lara Evans is assigned to this case. She is young and inexperienced, but is smart enough to realize that she needs to consult her partner and mentor, Detective Wade Jackson. Wade has recently been allowed two weeks to investigate the death of his parents from ten-years ago. The man convicted of killing his parents recently wrote a letter admitting to stealing money from his parents, but not killing them. Being that the man is dying of cancer, what reason would he have for lying now?

Logically, the local newspaper can't wait to print Gina's story. What a wonderful, upbeat surprise. However, if someone tried to kill Gina two years ago, wouldn't that person still want to kill her? What if Gina really attempted suicide? She had tried it before and was heavily in debt. Would the publicity cause the murderer to try again? Could running this story cause further embarrassment if Gina did try to kill herself?

These two cases of the coma awakening and the death of Jackson's parents combine into this story, Dying for Justice by L.J. Sellers. As the cases interweave, the character traits are openly revealed into a realistic novel involving the personal and professional lives of both detectives. The investigations are realistic in that the detectives are looking outside the finite set of characters in the beginning of the story and always searching for possible suspects, not just those closely associated with the victims.

Dying for Justice is the fifth of L. J. Sellers' Detective Jackson mystery series. In this novel which also works as a stand alone, the character development is exceptionally strong. L. J. Sellers has also written two non-series novels, The Baby Thief and The Suicide Effect.

Dying for Justice is an unpredictable, realistic, and well-written mystery that keeps you engaged until the last page. The pace never slows and easily parallels the life style of a police detective. L. J. Sellers writes superbly literally hurling the reader in this realistic mystery. Personally, I plan to read all the Detective Jackson mysteries and her other novels. Dying for Justice is definitely a memorable and enjoyable mystery.