(2 of 2)
Maas offers no happy fadeout with right restored and virtue intact. Marie Ragghianti today is a political pariah; no politician wants to hire the woman who brought down a Governor. She is a teacher of criminology at a Florida community college, consoling herself with the meditations of a stoic: "Have I done something for the general interest? Well, then, I have had my reward." Maas' forensic style and vigorous tempo are ideally suited to Marie's story. The author makes clear that his knowledge of feminine determination is derived from experience. His late wife, Audrey Gellen Maas, was co-producer of the film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, in which a widowed woman stubbornly sets out on her own. Marie is a homage to her memory, and an explanation of her message: It is no longer a case of what women want; it is what they do not want that moves mountains nowadays. —By J.D. Reed