DAMAGE CONTROL
Robert Dugoni
Warner Books
Thriller
ISBN-10: 0446578703
ISBN-13: 9780446578707

• Read an Excerpt
• About the Book
• Critical Praise
• Interview -- February 16, 2007

Robert Dugoni is a former practicing attorney. Therefore, it's no surprise that lawyers abound in DAMAGE CONTROL, even if courtroom scenes do not. The chief protagonist in Dugoni's second novel (following THE JURY MASTER) is Dana Hill, an ascending star in a high-profile Seattle law firm. Hill is the chief breadwinner in the office and head bottle washer at home, attempting to raise her young daughter in spite of her other child, Grant Brown, who happens to be her husband. Brown is consumed by the god of self-importance, a delusion that makes it easier for him to live with the fact that he is married to a woman who is smarter, more successful, more giving and generally just better than he is.

Hill's balancing act begins to fall apart when her life sustains multiple physical and emotional traumas. She is diagnosed with breast cancer, her beloved brother James is brutally murdered, and her husband's affair of some months is revealed. It is almost foreseeable that Hill sets aside her personal problems to discover the circumstances behind her brother's slaying. Her only potential clue leads her to risk her job and her life as she pursues an enigmatic and mysterious individual who quietly may hold the key to the secret that James coveted and that ultimately resulted in his death.

DAMAGE CONTROL is far more than a thrilling whodunit, however. Dugoni presents an interesting metaphor here, setting up a situation wherein Hill, by putting everything at risk, ultimately obtains the key for saving herself. And while Hill is the primary protagonist, it is the secondary characters who shine and ultimately propel the book. One, Dr. Frank Pilgrim, is an elderly pediatrician in the twilight of his career; he appears only in the beginning yet provides a quiet impetus for all that occurs throughout --- though we don't learn how or why until almost the very end of this fine work.

Then there is William Welles, a legendary and reclusive jewelry designer who does not enter the narrative until well into the halfway point of the book. While present for only two short chapters, he provides resolution for not one but two main plot points. And let's not forget Carmen Dupree, a housekeeper possessed of a bottomless well of quiet strength who, even though she doesn't meet Hill until the end of the book, indirectly provides the means by which Hill ultimately is able to visit a rough justice upon her brother's murderer.

DAMAGE CONTROL is a literary thriller that reveals the true depth and richness of Dugoni's talent. While drawn from the wellspring of intellect, it is obviously written from the heart. You simply cannot get a better combination than that.

   --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

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