Like many Washington D.C. law enforcement professionals, medical examiner Jessica Coran has had plenty of run-ins with Judge Maureen DeCampe, who's a little too liberal for her liking. But when DeCampe is kidnapped and tortured in a scenario so horrible that a psychic colleague of Jessica's falls ill with a mysterious syndrome after she attempts to "sense" the victim's whereabouts, Coran races the clock to find and free DeCampe before her friend can sever the psychic connection with the judge's kidnapper. It doesn't take long for the FBI to finger the perp--the father of a criminal DeCampe sentenced to death--but by the time they track him to the abandoned farm where he's bound the judge to the decaying body of his recently executed son, it may be too late for Jessica to save her friend. Fans of Robert W. Walker's nine previous thrillers featuring the redoubtable Ms. Coran will be delighted to meet her again; despite his sometimes stiff and ponderous style, Walker succeeds at telling a good story with plenty of the gory details that have made forensic suspense an increasingly popular genre. --Jane Adams
From Publishers Weekly
Jessica Coran, the ace, if dry, medical examiner and detective heroine of Walker's long-running series, has a plum job working for the FBI. In composing her latest adventure, Walker takes his cue from the "unnatural" urges specified in his title and invents a demented father, Isaiah Purdy, who is determined to exact vengeance for the execution of his son, Jimmy, a killer sentenced to death by D.C. judge Maureen DeCampe. Isaiah abducts DeCampe, whisks her off to a newly rented barn by a chemicals factory and subjects her to a slow, gruesome death by gangrene, strapped to his dead son. Though no one much likes DeCampe, who is despised by Coran as a "closet libertarian," Coran sets out to save her. Coran's best friend, Kim Desinor, FBI agent and psychic, inexplicably is afflicted with full-scale life-threatening empathic stigmata, a sure sign that DeCampe is in trouble and perhaps a substitute for real sympathy for the judge's plight. While Coran herself is a sturdy central character who just about keeps the FBI circus on focus, the story flares up only via peripheral, crackpot characters: the Bible-thumping Isaiah Purdy; a homeless ex-teacher and dog lover, Marsden; and Nancy Willis, heroic busybody neighbor. Walker inserts plot devices and clues in a heavy-handed manner, deflating subtlety and suspense, and the novel's climax is perfunctory. Overall, this is a skilled but essentially formulaic suspense tale, high in melodrama.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
In Walker's eighth Jessica Coran mystery, Washington, D.C., appellate court judge Maureen DeCampe is abducted by Isaiah Purdy, the father of a man she sentenced to death in Texas. FBI medical examiner Coran races against time to save the judge, who is being slowly tortured to death by being lashed to the corpse of Purdy's just executed son. Wordy explanations and unnecessary subplot information (clearly setting up the next book) slow the pace of what could have been an electric thriller, although the momentum does pick up toward the end of the book as the FBI gets closer to the kidnapper and finally attempts to rescue DeCampe. Fascinating medical details, a unique murder method, and effective use of multiple points of view (narration alternates among Purdy, DeCampe, and several law-enforcement officers) help redeem the gruesome story. For fans of Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs--if they can hold out until the pacing picks up. Sue O'Brien
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
Dr. Jessica Coran faces the most terrifying challenge of her career-when her professional adversary, a criminal court judge, is kidnapped by a deranged man with an unnatural instinct for revenge...
Unnatural Instinct: A Jessica Coran Novel FROM THE PUBLISHER
"For years, FBI medical examiner Dr. Jessica Coran's greatest adversary has been Judge Maureen DeCampe, whose brand of revolving-door justice has made enemies and headlines. Now she's Coran's first priority. The controversial magistrate has hit the front page once again - but this time as a victim." "Abducted from the caverns of the courthouse garage, DeCampe has vanished off the face of the earth. There's been no demand for ransom. No ultimatum from the kidnapper. No clues, and so far, no suspects. And each dead end is feeding Jessica Coran's worst fears. If it's not money the abductor wants, then it's revenge. And if it's revenge, then the nightmare is just beginning for DeCampe - and for anyone who dares to look for her." Now, miles from civilization, in a deceptively peaceful stretch of the Iowa heartland, a stranger lies in judgment - and in wait. One woman has already been brought before him - condemned in his own private court of law. Soon, another woman will follow, lured into the dark hollows of his secluded little farmhouse where justice is served in the most unimaginable and unnatural of ways.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Jessica Coran, the ace, if dry, medical examiner and detective heroine of Walker's long-running series, has a plum job working for the FBI. In composing her latest adventure, Walker takes his cue from the "unnatural" urges specified in his title and invents a demented father, Isaiah Purdy, who is determined to exact vengeance for the execution of his son, Jimmy, a killer sentenced to death by D.C. judge Maureen DeCampe. Isaiah abducts DeCampe, whisks her off to a newly rented barn by a chemicals factory and subjects her to a slow, gruesome death by gangrene, strapped to his dead son. Though no one much likes DeCampe, who is despised by Coran as a "closet libertarian," Coran sets out to save her. Coran's best friend, Kim Desinor, FBI agent and psychic, inexplicably is afflicted with full-scale life-threatening empathic stigmata, a sure sign that DeCampe is in trouble and perhaps a substitute for real sympathy for the judge's plight. While Coran herself is a sturdy central character who just about keeps the FBI circus on focus, the story flares up only via peripheral, crackpot characters: the Bible-thumping Isaiah Purdy; a homeless ex-teacher and dog lover, Marsden; and Nancy Willis, heroic busybody neighbor. Walker inserts plot devices and clues in a heavy-handed manner, deflating subtlety and suspense, and the novel's climax is perfunctory. Overall, this is a skilled but essentially formulaic suspense tale, high in melodrama. (Aug. 6) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Dr. Jessica Corwin (Bitter Instinct, 2000, etc.) has already tangled with liberal Washington judge Maureen DeCampe, but now, returning from a blissful two-month hiatus with her life partner Richard Sharpe to a new job as medical examiner to the FBI, she has an unenviable task: finding the vanished jurist. Luckily, Richard, until recently a detective at New Scotland Yard, has moved to Washington just in time to assist Jessica as an FBI consultant. Early on, Walker reveals that elderly Iowa farmer Isaiah Purdy has kidnapped the judge and handcuffed her to the stolen corpse of his son Jimmy Lee, executed for murder long after Judge DeCampe put Jimmy Lee on death row following his first trial. Meanwhile, in the absence of a clear motive or substantial forensic evidence, Jessica consults psychic Kim Desinor, who's successfully helped her on several cases in the past. Searching the garage where Maureen was last seen, Kim suffers a violent seizure and develops inexplicable sores and bruises, a rare empathic reaction that means she'll surely die before long. Now the clock is ticking for both the judge and the psychic. While he's waiting and waiting to spring an action-picked finale, triggered by a twist blatantly lifted from The Silence of the Lambs, Walker counterpoints Jessica's methodical collection of evidence, eventually leading to a cross-country chase, with Isaiah's sadistic torture of Maureen, studded with loony comments about Jimmy Lee and quotations torn from their Old Testament context. A one-dimensional thriller with wall-to-wall stereotypes, though the strong, direct prose of Walker's ninth does keep up the pace.
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