Book Review: Dirty Blonde by Lisa Scottoline

Dirty Blonde introduces Cate Fante, a newly appointed judge at the young age of 39. She's intimidated yet excited to belong to such an exclusive "club", a club she will belong to for life.

However, Cate isn't your typical judge. After her first day, she's created a name for herself, and unfortunately it's not anything the rest of the judges are ecstatic about. She doesn't do things by the book, to put it mildly. And her private life isn't any better. Doing what she's doing in the heat of the night isn't appropriate behavior for someone like her, a person that is in a high profile position, serving the public.

Unfortunately, Cate is having a hard time kicking her bad habits, but because of a case that ends on a sour note, her private life has become public and her position as a judge is being threatened. And now that two people have ended up dead, Cate wonders is it because of what she said that day in court, or was there another motive for the murders? Should she have done a better job in keeping her emotions in check?

No longer with a job, Cate tries to get to the truth and find the person that murdered two people. At the same time, her life is now being threatened, most likely by someone tied to the case she had just ruled on.

Dirty Blonde centers on a very unconventional judge doing inappropriate things (on her time off) but her heart is in the right place. After all has been said and done, I wasn't sure if I liked Cate Fante or not. I often found myself siding with the other judges, feeling that her behavior in court and outside of it needed to be curbed, and I also asked myself how could someone like her end up as a federal judge? Once I got past that, however, I was able to enjoy the book, but it was little things like that which made it hard for me to totally believe in the character and in the story.

It was a wild ride, to say the least, and because of it I did not predict who the murderer was, and will recommend this one.