Product Description

Julia Valenciano is a young, ambitious prosecutor facing a case that could launch her career. The defendant David Marquette is a successful Miami surgeon and devoted family man. The victims are Marquette's own wife and three small children. The plea is not guilty by reason of insanity. The perfect father and model husband, David Marquette seemingly just snapped. His experienced defence team claims paranoid delusions caused by schizophrenia drove him to slaughter his entire family. But the state suspects Marquette's insanity defence is being fabricated to disguise murders that were cold-blooded and calculated. Worse, Julia believes Marquette could be responsible for a string of unsolved, brutal homicides. The distraught survivor could just be one of the most prolific and elusive serial killers in the country's history. To bring him to justice, Julia must embark on a terrifying personal journey back into her own past - something she has struggled for fifteen years to forget. And this will lead her to confront a future so chilling, she's not sure she will ever be able to face it..." Plea of Insanity" confirms Jilliane Hoffman as a major thriller-writing talent at the peak of her powers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #266324 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 608 pages

About the Author
Jilliane Hoffman was an Assistant State Attorney between 1992 and 1996. Until 2001 she was the Regional Legal Adviser for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, advising special agents on complex investigations including narcotics, homicide and organized crime. She lives in Florida. Plea of Insanity is her third novel, following the international bestsellers Retribution and Last Witness.

Customer Reviews

Not up to standard
A well written and researched book, lots of information on the courts system, and also on schizophrenia. However, the suspense was a little disjointed, and the book didn't really end, obviously there is going to be a sequel. However, I like Jilliane's books and will definitely buy the next one.

Plea of Insanity - the clue is in the title
I am so sorry to have to say this book was a disappointment following the first 2 marvellous stories from this author. When you have finished the book and read her 'afterword' it becomes clear why she has written this story and focused so much on the main character's thoughts/feelings/fears, and that was well done, but unfortunately, at the cost of the plot. The 'thriller' part of the story-line is disjointed and for me, very unsatisfactorily handled. The published synopsis offers such hope for a thoroughly good thrilling story-line which was not delivered. Sorry Jilliane, I hope that now you have this issue off your chest, you can continue to write thrillers to the same standard of your first 2 books.

Too self indulgent to be considered anything more than a mediocre read.
This book starts off well but loses momentum at about 200 pages. The story started to drag out abit and i was regretting even starting the book. But by about the halfway mark it picked up again and managed to keep me interested till the end. However the story was far too self indulgent in the matters of Schizophrenia and the Legal system. Which I agree are both integral parts to the story but there was no need to go into such depth of either subject. There was also an unneeded romantic sub plot chucked in in the later part of the book seemingly out of nowhere. And the supposed cliffhangers at the end of chapters could be seen 2 or 3 pages coming. There's all that and the fact that since her first book I've lost track of the amount of times i've read the line 'Sliced to ribbons' in a Hoffman book.
Faults aside I still seem to hold faith in Hoffmans talent as a story writer. Even though she's yet to churn out another as good as her debut 'Retribution'. But compared to her dire second attempt of 'Last Witness' this is somewhat a breath of fresh air as Hoffman atleast seems to be on track to eventually getting back to the heights of her first attempt.
So all in all this is a pretty run of the mill legal book. Not so much a thriller unfortunately. It's 600 pages of legal matters and a pretty in depth class in Miami law and the effects of Schizophrenia.