A producer for DBS News in New York, Sally has almost been killed in a bombing orchestrated as part of ongoing rival gang warfare and is now a high profile witness for the defense in a murder case stemming from that bombing.

In Los Angeles, waiting to be called as a witness, Sally has just finished lunch with a member of the defense team and is being escorted from the restaurant back to the courthouse when she observes a car speeding toward the front of the restaurant where patrons are seated. Acting quickly, she manages to pull a customer from out of the way of the car and then renders first aid to the car’s driver before returning to the courthouse.

When Sally is called and sworn in, the trial is interrupted by a police officer, Paul Fitzwilliam, who has come to arrest her in connection with the car crash. We soon learn that the charges are being brought by the person she saved from the oncoming car, who is claiming that she injured his shoulder when she pulled him away.

The trial continues, and Sally is set up for a cross-examination that permits the prosecutor to paint her as Sally Slut. Then, on leaving the courthouse the first afternoon of testimony, her entourage is attacked by gunfire from a low flying helicopter. If it sounds as though things are going from bad to worse, they are.

In The Bad Witness the murder trial provides the mechanism for introducing a great deal of back-story, which enables a new reader to Van Wormer to work through the huge cast of characters introduced in her earlier books. The plot provides very little mystery and the ending could have been contrived to go either way. But contrived it is.

Although Sally is a pert, sympathetic character, she is also astonishingly self-absorbed. What is missing from this story is the kind of tension you would expect if your life appeared to be in constant danger and your reputation was being destroyed. Instead, Sally is exploring the thought of an affair with a young police officer, in spite of the hits her love life is already taking in the courtroom. It is this total departure from reality that makes me less than an enthusiastic Sally fan.

But then, if you are a reader who avoids gritty tension, wants some humor in a detective story, and enjoys reading more about the inner works of producing news shows for TV then the Sally Harrington series is a definite recommend. The next book in the series, The Kill Fee, has just been released.

--Thea Davis