Salem Falls, By Jodi Picoult

I can't remember why I wanted to read this book. I think it was b/c I had just read The Pact, and had a craving for a little more Picoult.

Picoult has a distinct pattern in her books: she flips back and forth between the present and the past, and one or more characters always has a big secret, that will be unveiled at the last possible moment, and usually in a court somehow. I have read enough of her books that now I'm incredibly paranoid about Picoult--I start to suspect that in THIS book there will be no "twist", no "secret". It's a trick, b/c she's figured out that we have figured HER out! In this one he will have actually committed the crime but get off for it, but it's ok b/c he's really really sorry!

But yeah, that didn't happen. Of course, the main dude didn't go to jail, but he actually didn't commit the crime either, so I was wrong about that.

I had a few problems with the science, but I think that was my fault--I watch too much CSI, so I of course believe that a tiny speck of DNA evidence will give you the entire DNA profile of the "perp", plus show his pants size, hair color, and tendency toward rape. In this book, which for all I know what written before our current technology, they find semen, but can only show that the dude has like a 1 in 40,000 chance of being the donor. In CSI they would have, like a said, a complete profile showing that the semen belonged to a blood relative of the victims. OOPS. that was a spoiler. About halfway into it you totally figure that out on your own, though, even though Picoult waits until PAGE THE VERY LAST to tell you.

Also, she tried to show that the hunt for the rapist in today's Salem Falls was similar to the hunt for witches back then, which was kind of an obvious thing, really.