Killer Smile (2004)

Scottoline's 11th legal thriller unfolds like a John Grisham page-turner with a spunky Italian-American protagonist and a loopier-than-usual plot. Young Philadelphia attorney Mary DiNunzio (fans will remember her from Everywhere That Mary Went) becomes obsessed with the suspicious death of an Italian-American fisherman in a WWII internment camp. Neurotic, wisecracking, and intrepid, she races around Philly alternately pursuing leads and fleeing a pimply thug in a black Escalade. The writing is clunky and the story line far-fetched, but Scottoline manages to bring the reader along for the ride with the energy of her heroine's sassy, self-deprecating voice.