Book Review: Twisted Justice by Patricia Gussin

Twisted Justice by Patricia Gussin is a murder/mystery/thriller that centers on the unraveling of a marriage caused by a cheating husband, a murder, and two people who care more about their kids and their careers than each other.

Successful thoracic surgeon Dr. Laura Nelson catches her husband — a nightly news anchor at the Tampa TV News — on their couch with his sexy Latino co-anchor, and forces him to move out. Weeks later after Steve essentially kidnaps their children from Laura’s home, she drives to Steve’s apartment only to find the co-anchor’s dead body soaked in blood. After the arrival of two police officers, Laura’s world gets turned upside down. She’s arrested and deemed the primary suspect. Her husband refuses to pay her bail, basically calls her a murderer on television, and skips town with their five children. Laura struggles to get the charges dropped and put her family back together.

Twisted Justice and Shadow of Death, Gussin’s first novel, both center on Gussin’s knowledge of medicine. Gussin is a doctor of pediatrics who attended medical school in Detroit where Shadow of Death is set and then did an internship and her pediatric residency in Tampa where Twisted Justice is set. I had no idea that Twisted Justice was in any way tied to Shadow of Death before reading the novel. It is a solitary entity, and I was oblivious to the fact that I was missing the back-story to Laura and Steve’s relationship. The back-story plays a minimal part near the end, but as I was reading I didn’t think it necessarily needed further explanation.

Twisted Justice is definitely a page-turner, and Gussin knows how to create interest in and sympathy for her characters, especially her protagonist. However, I think there are a lot of characters, especially secondary characters, that don’t contribute to the plot that much. Though I personally had no problem keeping all the characters straight, I can vouch for people who might have trouble. I think the story could have been just as efficient without characters such as Laura’s attorney’s fiancé, Celeste, and the Ruiz family.

Article Author: Briana Johnson

Briana Johnson is a professional writing sophomore at the University of Oklahoma. She is the Senior Editor for the OU yearbooks, Crimson Traditions and Sooner. She is also a waitress at On the Border in Norman.

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