4 out of 4 stars
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Blanket Immunity, also known as transactional or total immunity, is a legal term used for explaining the privilege a potential witness enjoys if he provides a testimony that would otherwise have incriminated him and led to his incarceration. In other words, a witness who is granted blanket immunity would walk away even after providing proof of involvement in a crime. This provision, therefore, is every alleged criminal’s dream and is understandably very difficult to attain, both for criminal defense lawyers and the alleged criminals seeking its protection.
In Adam Van Susteren’s Blanket Immunity, Joanna (Jo) Channing quits her job as a deputy district attorney after failing to achieve the career upgrade of becoming a judge. Having functioned as a public defender for five years, she launches a law firm which plunges her into criminal defense practice. Jo’s first client, Brad, is a police officer and an alleged rapist who wants to be certain that no charges are brought up against him to tarnish his reputation. He claims Cassie Young is framing him up but offers to quit the force if no charges are pressed. Utterly convinced by Brad’s sterling case presentation with matching proof of innocence, Jo lands him blanket immunity by pulling some strings. Does he deserve it? Has Jo proved to be one heck of a defense lawyer, or has she made a terrible mistake? Find out how she ends up fitting into both shoes.
In the course of assisting a colleague to deliver a message to a prison inmate, Jo unwittingly gets involved with a drug dealer, and subsequently, a murderer named Omar. However, their relationship is quite unlike the norm, and I must say, I found it rather interesting and heartwarming. Van Susteren had this unique way of pitching these extreme characters together such that they appeared more like family.
Somewhere along the line, Jo meets Dzuy who becomes a key player in both her personal and professional life. What really intrigued me was the speed with which Dzuy was sucked into the drama due to some dicey situations seemingly beyond his control; scenarios he’d rather not get involved in, but couldn’t quite bring himself to let Jo face alone. Nonetheless, just how much longer and how far is Dzuy willing to go for her? And does seeking justice quantify causing someone a brush with death? To what length is Jo prepared to go in order to rectify her miscalculations? Will she have her happily-ever-after with Dzuy, or has she permanently ruined her chances?
Themes of honesty, truth, justice and dogged determination outrightly permeated Blanket Immunity. They shone through Jo’s resolution to correct her initial error in judgement regarding Brad’s case—a resolve I was most impressed with. Although her first attempt resulted in a more negative consequence than she could possibly have imagined, Jo struggled tooth-and-nail to ensure that justice was done while placing herself in parlous situations. She remained undeterred even with the knowledge that she’d be losing a mouth-watering referral fee at a time when that sum would have been highly instrumental in firmly establishing her practice, not to mention supporting her ailing father. As Jo puts it, “Why does the right thing have to financially suck?” I honestly had to examine and question myself as to what I would have done if I found myself at similar crossroads.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Blanket Immunity. When I wasn’t with the book, I was thinking about it. Van Susteren is a winsome writer who uses simple language to explain otherwise complex analogies. I especially appreciated his legal expertise when he dissected Jo’s thoughts on the credibility of police officers who arrested drivers under DUI since these officers could possibly derive hidden financial incentives from court proceedings. The entire book is somewhat fast-paced, humorous, and intellectually engaging. Clean, light romance is evident, with no explicit scenes for sensitive readers.
However, my causes for complaint in terms of grammatical errors range from the absence of commas setting off fronted adverbial phrases to an entire conversation written in Spanish (loc. 2240) without a modicum of translation assistance for those who neither spoke nor understood the written form of the language. Other minor errors such as misspellings, word omissions, and wrong word usage were also present. For example, “talking” was written instead of “taking” (loc. 4646), “am” rather than “I’m” (loc. 452), and “…do something the money Omar left me…” when it really should have been, “do something with the money Omar left me…”(loc. 4688). Nonetheless, I was too taken by the story to be seriously distracted by these mundane flaws. For this reason, Blanket Immunity walks away with its complete rating of 4 out of 4 stars. I can’t think of a single soul who wouldn’t enjoy this book, even those who generally don’t like legal thrillers.
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Blanket Immunity
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