HOSTILE WITNESS: A Josie Bates Thriller (The Witness Series Book 1)

I couldn’t put this book down! The main characters are very well developed and the story has twists - so just when you thought you knew who set a fire that killed a judge, something else comes to light and leads you in another direction.Wasn’t let down at the end although I wanted to keep reading more. Hope the following books continues where this one left off.

Yes, we can be misled by people like Linda in this saga, people who are high-minded and arrogant enough that somehow we BELIEVE in their grandiosity. We believe they are much more capable and successful than they truly are. Sometimes we trust this type of person in important decisions and regret it later, after realizing they were only it it for themselves, for the promotion of their false selves. I find the characters frighteningly believable. This one was so good, that I read much of it aloud to my husband so that we could both enjoy it. Well done! And I found only one typo. Hint: know is misspelled now. I will be buying more from this author.

This thriller kept my interest throughout. The characters were well developed. The plot kept me guessing right up to the end. Good start to a series.

This was a great book, very hard to put down, loved the story line and looking so forward to reading more in this series.Thank you for a great book.PJV

Not a bad read. Not sure if I want to read the series though. Would like to see a photo or illustrations of the characters as the author sees them.

This was a great read. You are pulled in at the beginning . I could not put this book down. Will definitely read the next one. I have already downloaded it

When Attorney Josie Baylor-Bates is approached by her former college room mate Linda to defend her daughter who is charged with murder in the death of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the state of California, Justice Fritz Stanton, who is also Linda’s father-in law, Josie is reticent to do so because she is haunted by the effects of her defense of a girl she’d defended & won a verdict of “Not Guilty”. The only problem is that Josie learned that that client was guilty and continued her criminality. Nonetheless, she decides to defend Hanna Sheraton, a teen, who excels in artistic paintings & has a studio on the ground floor in the house she shares with State Supreme Justice Fritz Stanton, her stepfather, Kip and her mother, Linda. Hanna has emotional problems with obsessive compulsive disorder and is hated by her stepfather, Linda's wealthy husband. Hanna's mother believes the best situation for Hanna is a guilty plea which would enable her to be sent to a psychiatric facility. Josie wins bail for Hanna while awaiting trial and Hanna is released under the careful 24/7 watch of her mother, Linda. When Josie learns that Linda has left Hanna unattended for three days, Josie’s antenna go up. She questions everything she was conflicted about previously and digs deeper into her investigation. During that time, Hanna runs away from home traveling to see her friend Miggy, who has the ability to calm frantic Hanna nerves. She gives Miggy a folder of her drawings and several diary-like notes, that he gives to Josie and that causes Josie to reflect on Josie’s suspicions about Hanna’s guilt or innocence. Still conflicted, Josie digs deeper, examining Hanna’s documentation and all the additional information at her disposal. Josie must determine if she is defending a guilty or innocent young woman. While on the lamb, abandoned by her mother, Hanna is hit by a car and is admitted to the iCU and placed in a medically-induced coma. As she begins healing and is taken off life support, Hanna tells Josie that she wants to plead guilty and end the trial. The trial ends with a guilty verdict. The thing that really bothers Josie is that when Hanna is released from the hospital, she will be remanded to the peditentary to serve a life sentence in an adult facility which houses the worst of the worst offenders. That’s when matters become really intense for Josie, who becomes plagued by the certainty that Hanna is “Not Guilty”. Strongly advised by her good friend Archer, Hanna, & Linda, Josie struggles with the feeling that Hanna is not guilty in spite of everyone's advice to let go of the case & move on with her life. Not one to give up on saving Hanna, Josie becomes obsessed with proving her innocence. That’s when everything changes. What she learns and the battles she must fight to prove it, become terrifying and life-threatening. Read this thrilling book to learn the intense turns of events.

Like an amateur runner in a marathon for the first time, Rebecca Forster's legal thriller Hostile Witness starts out strong but winds up running out of gas a number of pages before the finish line. The book does have a number of things going for it, starting with a solid protagonist. Josie Baylor-Bates is a former hot shot defense attorney whose career pretty much fell apart several years earlier when she won an acquittal for a defendant in a high profile case who then went home and murdered her children in rather gruesome fashion. Josie fled the spotlight to a small California beach community where she spends her time on nickel-and-dime cases.All that changes when a former college friend, Linda Rayburn, hires Josie to defend her daughter, Hannah Sheraton, a troubled teenager who is accused of murdering her step-grandfather, who was a justice on the California Supreme Court. Linda's husband has been named by the governor to succeed his father on the court, and both Linda and her husband want Josie to find a way to make the case go away and get Hannah some professional help. Josie, however, winds up becoming convinced of Hannah's innocence and realizes the girl's parents may not have her best interests at heart.The book is written primarily from Josie's viewpoint and allows readers considerable insight into Josie's thought processes. When it does so, it's often gripping. Josie has to continually wrestle with demons from her own troubled younger days as well as the question of whether she's trying to get another dangerous killer off. And, when Josie is examining witnesses, framing her thoughts before she asks questions makes the examination much more interesting.Unfortunately, author Forster also chooses to take readers inside the heads of other characters during portions of the book and she is considerably less successful there. Some of these characters have things to hide (understandable in a mystery thriller), but when Forster tries to write around this, the inner narrative becomes awkward at best and downright dishonest in a few places. And, when Forster tries to go inside the heads of multiple characters in the same scene (as in a couple of key encounters in the later stages of the book), the book's pacing slows down far too much. These sections needed tighter editing to cut away unnecessary verbiage and let inherently dramatic dialogue speak for itself without expanding on the characters' thought processes behind almost every single sentence.Forster also apparently is not an attorney (but is married to one) and her depiction of the legal proceedings sometimes sacrifices accuracy for drama. Josie, in the best tradition of Matlock and Perry Mason, is given free rein to wander all over the place a couple of times while the judge and DA vanish into the woodwork. In addition, the sequence of events described in the trial just couldn't have happened in real life. Plus, Forster pulls some key bits of evidence seemingly out of thin air with no introduction or foreshadowing. It's a technique that works at first but becomes annoying later in the book.The book, despite its flaws, has a likable, sympathetic (albeit flawed) main character and a defendant whose psychological problems play out quite credibly and sympathetically. Readers will want Josie to succeed and help Hannah. As for Hannah, readers will wind up shaking their heads at some of Hannah's bad choices but seeing the troubled, frightened teenage girl inside (a complex character nicely rendered by Forster). Also, as a mystery, Forster lays out the plot rather well and disguising the clues nicely. Despite a fairly limited number of characters, readers will probably have a hard time guessing exactly what went on much before Josie herself does.On balance, Hostile Witness succeeds as both character drama and legal thriller. The book starts out strong and maintains its pace for about two-thirds of its length before starting to meander when it should be getting more focused. Still, the momentum that Forster builds earlier in the book should keep readers going until the last pages. Josie is an unusual and likable fictional attorney whose future cases should probably prove rather interesting.

I hadn’t read anything by this author before and despite the mixed reviews I thought I would download it especially as it was free. I enjoy crime stories but more so when they are also court dramas. This book is based in the USA so I didn’t find it as enjoyable as books I’ve read where the author writes about a crime committed in the UK but the story itself is fast paced and had me not wanting to put it down in parts. Although I found the ending was predictable I did enjoy it and I will probably download more books in the series.

The story idea wasn't bad but it wasn't executed well. The main character was far too much of a walkover and while I know people like that exist in real life, reading is about escapism. Normally if someone tricks and cons you, you stay away from them you don't go back for more again, and again, and again, believing every word they say.Especially not when the person tricking you is a money grabbing selfish woman. I would have liked to see the character undertake the case for a reason that wasn't loyalty to someone who had used her for years. That sort of loyalty is ridiculous and irritating. I wonder if the writer couldn’t think of anything better or just couldn’t be bothered?Weak characters don't make for pleasant reading, they just become annoying.This is only one example of what was wrong with this, but there are many many more.

There are a number of ways to categorize ‘Hostile Witness’ – it is a murder mystery, a crime investigation, a legal thriller, and a courtroom drama and it embraces numerous issues of law, politics and family. With so many different elements it is not surprising that its plot is far-fetched – but hey – it’s fiction – it’s fabulous fiction full of tension and suspense. It is exciting and entertaining.Lawyer Josie Bates is the main protagonist who takes on the defence of a sixteen year old girl, Hannah, accused of arson and killing a prominent Supreme Court Judge. He is Hannah’s step-grandfather, his son is her step-father married to birth mother, and all hide secrets and have interweaving interests. The plot is so wonderfully convoluted that it is hard to imagine anything left for Josie to do after conclusion of ‘Hostile Witness’ which is the first of a seven book Josie Bates thriller series.‘Hostile Witness’ spans almost the full spectrum of the worst and best of human behaviour from dark and disturbing treachery and betrayal to love loyalty and duty. Narrative is gripping and compelling as it stirs up feelings and emotions. Characters are well developed and they shift between matters of motives, evidence, alibis, suspects and witnesses via multiple twists and turns and red-herrings. This is fabulous 5-star fiction.

This is the first book I have read by this author, and I intend to read more.I found the introduction was slow, and flashes of Josie's past home life were not very informative although they gave some insight into her character as an adult and her behaviour in this case. I didn't see any of the poor writing standard described in older reviews and think the case was built well as more evidence and knowledge was uncovered. In books of this genre how the reader is drawn to the conclusion is much more important than who 'did it' so even if the criminal is correctly identified it doesn't spoil the enjoyment of a good read, although in this instance that is the reason for losing 1 star.I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it as an interesting read.

This book drags out the tension to the very end. We can tell almost from the very beginning that Hannah didn't do what she is accused of,so what is the truth behind the events of that night. This isn't exactly a detective story but it is an investigation into the truth of what happened on the night a death ocurred. Whilst it would appear that no-one really knows exactly what happened, the fact that the victim was a judge means that someone has to be held responsible, and it might as well be an insecure girl exhibiting signs of mental instability. Whilst everyone else is striving to ensure that they can fit the facts around the suspect, her distraught mother begs her old friend to be the girl's lawyer.The tale unfolds with good timing which helps the credibility and keeps the reader's attention. This isn't all car chases and an arrogant investigator, more a hesitant investigator fighting to hold onto the case in the teeth of opposition from where she expects support. Can Josie find the strength to hold on and keep trusting her client, even when logic, and all those around her are shouting her guilt?I didn't expect to like Josie very much but i found that I did. I liked her vulnerability, but also her determination even in the face of doubt. I like the way she held on even when she realised that not only did she not like her old friend but that they had never really been friends despite their shared past and I really like her integrity. Josie has the kind of courage which makes her hang on even when she is scared to death. I would rather have her as a friend than an adversary.