Fruit of the Poisonous Tree by Norm Harris

Fruit of the Poisonous Tree by Norm Harris
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Genre: Contemporary, Suspense/Mystery
Rated: 3 stars
Review by Rose

A female lawyer must prove a war hero’s innocence. Meanwhile, Navy SEALs hijack a Russian warship to stop a North Korean missile crisis.

Every now and again, a unique story comes our way, a story unlike any we may have read before. Such is Fruit of the Poisonous Tree, author Norm Harris’s critically acclaimed legal military mystery thriller. The story’s focal point is Faydra “Spider” Green, a dedicated Navy JAG lawyer who has lived her life in the shadows of a great and powerful man: her father, former President of the United States William Green. Green cannot heal the wound in his relationship with his daughter. His former power and influence curse Faydra and cause her to wonder if her accomplishments were her own doing.

A lawyer by trade, Faydra is both anxious and excited as she undertakes her first homicide investigation —the brutal murder of a Navy SEAL She reasons that a successful investigation will provide her the opportunity to validate her sense of self-worth. Faydra soon realizes that the accused man, a Special Ops Marine war hero, may be innocent thanks to her remarkable deductive abilities. The Navy is using her as a pawn in a complex cover-up.

Meanwhile, a seasoned Navy Sea Captain, Egan Fletcher, whose wife had died eight years earlier, struggles to balance his Navy career with raising a son. When the Navy purposefully pairs him with Faydra in a meeting, the two Navy officers embark on an adrenaline-pumping adventure. It is a top-secret mission- impossible that will take them halfway around the world in an attempt to avert a catastrophic act of terrorism in the form of biological warfare.

Set against the dramatic backdrop of Washington State’s Puget Sound and the mystique of East Asia, Fadra’s story revolves around a woman who appears to be as pure as the driven snow—yet, she is driven by an insatiable need to complete any assignment, no matter how dangerous. Along the way, she transforms into a symbol of hope, perseverance, and a woman’s ability to overcome life-threatening events.

There is a lot going on in this book – the action is quite riveting. What starts off as a simple murder investigation soon becomes much much more.

The storyline was complicated, and quite quickly led to multi-layers of issues for the characters. There were some inconsistencies with the characters and there were instances when they were talking where the dialogue didn’t ring true, which took me out of the story several times. However, even with those, the adventure element of the story drove me on.

I enjoyed the characters and their relationships with each other. And, I loved how the title was explained in the book… I had wondered about that.

All in all, an interesting debut and start to what seems will be an interesting series about Faydra and her investigations.

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