Just Jennifer

Corrupted by Lisa Scottoline

Bennie Rosato, founder of the Rosato & DiNunzio law firm, has a tough, no nonsense exterior and is as driven as they come.   Bennie doesn’t normally take on murder cases, but when she is called to the Philadelphia police department she finds the man sitting before her is the man she defended as a young boy who was sent, in her opinion, unfairly, to juvenile prison thirteen years ago.  Jason Leftavick is accused of stabbing the man who was the bully with whom he had a fight in middle school that landed him in the clutches of the juvenile justice system.  Bennie finds herself feeling she owes Jason for her own shortcomings and for the shortcomings of a system that failed him as a young boy.  Much of the story is told as a flashback, relating the events of December 2002, a time that left Bennie feeling vulnerable and defeated and with some hurts that have not healed over time.   Back in present day, Bennie throws herself into Jason’s case, trying to atone for her past failings, wondering if an innocent man is sitting before her or a man angry and hardened by a system that failed him.  Bennie is startled when someone from the past appears, someone with whom she never had a proper ending, someone with whom she might not be ready for an ending.  Fast-paced, Corrupted  follows the story of two young boys through a faulty system, and without the skills or resources to fully recover; full of well-drawn characters, Lisa Scottoline plumbs the depths of her main character, a woman who has never dealt with the hurt and scars from her past, but a woman who may just be ready to open herself up to a different kind of future.