Her characterisation of Nina Frost is excellent. The author introduces a nice forensic twist in the identification of the perpetrator. She finds herself in a moral dilemma and acts more as a desperate mother than as a rational prosecutor who respects the law.

Nina knows retribution is unlikely, if not impossible, to be delivered against the accused. A lay person is more or less trained to trust her legal representative to achieve justice for her and retribution for any abuser. For parents, this book would be not only a cautionary tale but a horror story in the extreme. Picoult exhibits a thorough understanding of the emotions motivating people. The remainder of the book focuses on her trial and the effect of it on her son, her family and her friends. Nathaniel regains his voice and tells his mother's closest friend, Patrick, a policeman, the identity of the rapist.Īt the arraignment of the family priest, Nina, distraught at the possibility that the priest may be freed and continue his predations, kills the suspect. Initially suspicion falls on her husband and a restraining order is taken out on him but it soon becomes apparent that the malefactor is a priest. To her horror, one day she discovers that her own child, five year-old Nathaniel, has become mute as a result of being raped. She feels totally frustrated and horrified as she daily sees the molesters of children walk away, at liberty to harm other children, simply because of the shortcomings of the legal system. Nina Frost is an Assistant District Attorney who prosecutes child molesters. The actions of these perverts have almost always changed the paths of, and in many cases even ruined, the lives of the victims.

The theme is made even more topical in these present times by scandals erupting almost daily about priests, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, who have taken advantage of their privileged position to gratify their own desires at the expense of a child's innocence. Perfect Match deals with a truly unpleasant subject: the sexual abuse of a child. She has a first hand experience of the unique, wrenching love of a mother for her child and so can incorporate that emotion into her books and, in turn, manipulate the emotions of those reading her work. She writes about family and relationships and it is the good fortune of her readers that she became a mother. This success generated her ambition to become a writer. A former teacher, Picoult was first published when she was in college. Certainly the legal and medical ferreting of facts she must have performed for this oeuvre is a credit to her. Jodi Picoult ( Songs of the Humpback Whale, Harvesting the Heart, Picture Perfect, Mercy, The Pact, Keeping Faith, Plain Truth, Salem Falls) prides herself on the painstaking research she undertakes for her novels.

Mercy by jodi picoult book summary