Until Proven Guilty

Biz Van Gelder

Trial. 30.1 (Jan. 1994): p80+.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 1994 American Association for Justice
http://www.justice.org/cps/rde/xchg/justice/hs.xsl/4938.htm
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The bodies of murdered women begin to appear in the bucolic community of
Espanola, California. They were all Hispanic and they all had suffered the same
horrific mutilation. Kathryn MacKay, hard-driving prosecutor, single mother, and
lonely heart, is put in charge of the investigation. With this scenario in place,
Christine McGuire launches a realistic crime thriller in Until Proven Guilty.

What sets this novel apart from the run-of-the-mill murder mystery is McGuire's
experience with the criminal justice system. The author is a California prosecutor
and an instructor at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's training academy. So it
makes sense that one of the central characters is an FBI-trained expert on
criminal profiling and that the day-to-day work of profiling is the engine that
moves the plot.

Using police and autopsy reports, victim information, crime scene photographs,
and physical evidence, the investigative team develops a profile of the killer. The
profile is of course incomplete-it gains structure each time the killer strikes. For
the good guys, it's a hit-and-miss game packed with tension. And the tension
runs even higher for the reader as McGuire offers occasional glimpses of the
killer's thoughts.

Until Proven Guilty is best when McGuire focuses on the process of developing
the murderer's profile. It is at these points that she most effectively moves the
plot along and fleshes out the characters. An example of this is the way she
develops a significant subplot-a tension-laden rivalry between Department of
Justice criminal expert Steve Giordano and streetwise detective Dave Granz.
These two characters follow the same leads using very different methods - one
pounds the keyboards, applying scientific theories to clues, while the other
pounds the pavement. They come to different conclusions about the murder, and
MacKay must decide who is right. The conflict is intensified when MacKay
becomes romantically involved with both men.

Meanwhile, an ambitious and unprincipled television reporter named Ricardo

Sanchez advances his career by whipping up public hysteria over the murders. A
 mole in the investigation feeds Sanchez confidential information about the
murderer's developing profile, which Sanchez indiscriminately broadcasts to the
public. The information in the broadcasts fuels the killer's anger, causing him to
be less careful in concealing his deeds. The leaks also increase political pressure
on MacKay to catch the killer, stretching her almost to her breaking point.

Much of the action takes place in the courtroom, and the author's depiction of
what goes on there is fairly true to life. MacKay's trial preparation and strategies
are authentic, as is her advice regarding the unpredictability of criminal
prosecutions:

No trial ever went entirely, according to plan. Call it what you like: glitches,
gremlins, Murphy's Law, something always went awry. The ground rules - the
Evidence Code, the Penal Code-were there, and the formalities of the courtroom
never changed. All the rest, the crcdibility of witnesses, the reactions of the
jurors, the decisions of the judge, remained completely unpredictable. And God
help the prosecutor who wasn't ready for that.

However, MacKay's closing arguments tend to be overly dramatic and

jurisdictions would merit appellate review. And the author makes a particularly
irritating error in plot development by failing to reveal the outcome of a closely
contested trial that took several chapters to develop.

One of the most compelling subplots in the book concerns MacKay's relationship
with her daughter. Constant pressure on MacKay to balance work and home is
deftly woven throughout the story. Every victory in the courtroom has its price at
home. McGuire paints a realistic portrait of the compromises a single working
mother must make to achieve success and stability, usually to the detriment of
the mother's personal life.

Kathryn MacKay is what many would call "a woman of the nineties." She's bright
and successful-and anxious and driven. Most of all, she is a realistic character in
a well-paced suspense mystery. In creating this super sleuth and super mom,
Christine McGuire has delivered a super read.

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)

Van Gelder, Biz. "Until Proven Guilty." Trial, Jan. 1994, p. 80+. Academic
OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A14790296/AONE?u=wash89460&sid=AONE&xid=68b8d19
a. Accessed 8 May 2018.