Dante's Dilemma

June 15, 2015
Rachel Lazarus has confessed to the mutilation murder of her estranged husband, a University of Chicago professor known for his provocative polemics, in Raimondo’s absorbing third mystery to feature blind Chicago psychiatrist Mark Angelotti (after 2014’s Dante’s Poison). Angelotti, who must decide if it was cold-blooded murder or the culmination of years of emotional and physical abuse, suspects that there may be more to the case. Meanwhile, professional upheaval and a looming custody battle for his young son have him on edge. With a winter storm bringing Chicago to a standstill and a case that touches on Angelotti’s own troubled childhood, he’s got his hands full. Raimondo does a good job highlighting some current academic controversies, but the book’s main strength is the flawed Angelotti, whose self-deprecating, wry humor in the face of his disability serves to offset some decidedly dark subject matter. Agent: Brooks Sherman, Bent Agency.

June 1, 2015
A battered wife finds an ally in a visually challenged expert witness. Dr. Dante Mark Angelotti has a full plate already in adjusting to life as a practicing psychologist who's become nearly blind. But now he's facing change on all sides: a new apartment, a new boss, a new office, a new custody battle over his young son, and a new case. The newly elected state's attorney wants him to evaluate an evaluation by Bradley Stephens, a fellow psychologist who was killed in a hit-and-run accident days before he could testify. Modern technology allows Mark to hear and absorb his colleague's documents while he forms his own opinion about what turns out to be far from an open-and-shut case. The defendant, Rachel Lazarus, has confessed to murdering her professor husband, brutally emasculating his corpse, and wheeling him across the University of Chicago's South Side campus. But she suffered years of his abuse, and though Mark has mixed feeling about Battered Woman Syndrome as a justification for homicide, he has his own reasons for knowing that post-traumatic stress disorder is all too real. Even so, there's something uncharacteristic about Stephens' final evaluation. To add to the complications, the defense attorney is Mark's estranged girlfriend. Worst of all, the prosecutor, Assistant State's Attorney Tony Di Marco, suddenly turns on Mark during trial and treats him as a hostile witness. When Di Marco's young assistant approaches Mark with a confession of her own, he finally begins to wonder if he was set up. While he's following several twists in a search for Lazarus' missing daughter, he uncovers a detail about a tragedy from his past and finds a flicker of hope for a better future. Although Mark is either distracted or benighted in his third case, Raimondo (Dante's Poison, 2014, etc.) has invested him with all his customary wit, courage, and honesty.

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