Plea of Insanity

February 16, 2009
In this gripping legal thriller from Hoffman (Retribution
), Julia Vacanti, a 28-year-old Miami assistant state attorney, helps to prosecute David Marquette, a Miami surgeon accused of stabbing his wife and their two older children as well as smothering their baby in Coral Gables, Fla. David’s plea of insanity finds the prosecution team working double time to prove he’s just a clever psychopath faking schizophrenia to avoid Florida’s death penalty. Meanwhile, the conflicted Julia obsesses about her schizophrenic brother, Andrew Citro, who was convicted of the fatal stabbings of their parents when she was 13. When Julia learns Andrew was committed to a center for the criminally insane in New York, she re-establishes contact, which results in some major courtoom drama. Hoffman’s intriguing plot snakes around both cases as Julia questions her own mental health and a future only a nail-biting sequel might fully answer. Author tour.