The Bad Witness

Sally Harrington #4

by Laura Van Wormer

Sally Harrington, a thirtysomething journalist, finds her life suddenly plunged into chaos when she is called as a key witness for the defense in the scandalous "Mafia Boss Murder" trial due to her connection with the victim, forcing her to accept police protection when things get dangerous. Reprint.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction

448 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Laura Van Wormer grew up in Darien, Connecticut, graduated from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and has spent most of her adult life working in publishing. She is the author of eleven previous novels. The Kill Fee is the fifth in the Sally Harrington series, although some of the characters - most notably the group at DBS News - are in her earlier novels Riverside Drive, West End, Any Given Moment and Talk.

Laura divides her time between Manhattan and Meriden, Connecticut.

Reviews

[Julie]

This was a light legal/romantic thriller. An easy read. Plot wasn't all that deep, secondary characters personal lives being examined slowed the pace down a little. But over all entertaining, and at times funny and maybe a little silly. But, I'm not hard to please.

[Donna]

In this romantic suspense from 2002, Sally Harrington is a producer for New York's DBS news. She's in Los Angeles due to being a witness at a murder trial. Much of the story takes place in the courtroom but Sally has lots of drama outside it also.

Sally was witty and spunky. Her love interest, police officer Paul, seemed cute and sweet but wimpy. Definitely not impressive. The story was told in Sally's POV. There is a lot of drama in the newsroom. If you like mobster plots and back and forth testimony on the witness stand, you might try this book. There really wasn't too much romance but I didn't feel the suspense either.

[Candy Harding]

This book was all over the board, didn’t really entice my interest.

[Asel Marie]

Whilst the book is described as a romantic suspense and the protagonist characterised as a heroine, I failed to find agreement. Sally Harrington is a simple character, at least from her depiction in this book, which serves as the fourth instalment in the Sally Harrington novel series by Van Wormer. Her character, one might say is practical. A 31 year-old woman in the field of journalism, who, perhaps, on account of her countenance (made mention of several times throughout the novel) finds herself entangled in circumstances far from extraordinary. On account of the namesake of the novel, she does find herself presenting as a ‘bad witness’ in a mafia-related murder case, though the section of the novel covering this did nothing for me. The rest of the case seemed more interesting, as did the other witnesses.

In all honesty, I am not a fan of romance novels or dialogue, characterisation and place-setting that allude to such and so I confess, I skipped the very few portions of the book like this. There were also bits of profanity here and there but nothing to write home about. I credit the author for the simplicity of the writing. If you're not too fond of having to search for the definition of words every few seconds, this might be perfect for you.

[Julia Anderson]

I like fiction - but this was too far-fetched, and I found the title character to be a little ditzy and not particularly likeable. It was an okay read - but I was eagerly looking forward to my next book.

[Robin Jansen]

Funny but couldn't put it down

[Diane Niksa]

Average fictional tale. Some rather far fetched. Skimmed through sections just to finish it up.

[Dawn]

I would actually give this 3 1/2 stars. This is the first of these books I have read, but I think the testimony in the trial in this book covered the events of the previous books. I'm not sure about that, but I certainly didn't feel lost or like I was missing anything. The book I read was an uncorrected proof, and it was REALLY uncorrected. I tried not to let it drive me too crazy, but it did. A lot of it was straight dialogue, almost a transcript from the courtroom testimony. I think those scenes could have been a little smoother. I liked Sally though, I thought she was a good character. Even the romance didn't bother me, though her constant waffling started to get irritating. I wouldn't mind seeing what Sally's up to next.

[Eric]

I hadn't been reading much at the time when i read this book and it got me into doing some more reading. It's sort of a "TV show" of books; pretty easy to read and entertaining. Just the right fit for an intellectual lightweight such as myself.

[Tammy]

I loved this book. Sally is a very intersting character who is always getting into some kind of trouble.

[Jackie Simons]

Read 11/02

[Martha]

It was ok. It is the first one I have read by Laura Van Wormer. Sally Harrington is a good character. The plot was good with great twists. But it lacked something that I can't put my finger on.

[Remma Kinyua]

Awesome and strong willed character.The Sally-type are rare