Rebecca Forster is a best-selling author of more than 40 crime thrillers. I recently picked up The Mentor during a free promo. It is one of her early books, and it reads like an early novel. Some good, some bad.

The baseline story is about a pair of federal prosecutors preparing for the trial of a father & son who are members of a terrorist/White supremacist/anarchist/ militia group, who bombed an IRS office, killing two bystanders.  But the plot isn’t really about that. Lauren, the hero, is mid-twenties and only a few years into her government lawyer career. She is second chair for this trial with Edie, a veteran who hopes to be promoted to head the LA office someday. Lauren was adopted as a teen by Wilson, a senior district court judge, after her mother, also a judge, killed herself. (One of the subplots is that Lauren never really knew why her mother killed herself, but it was not innocent. It seems odd that she never asked or that Wilson never told her, but she finds out in the course of this story.) Meanwhile, judge Wilson had earlier de facto adopted a young lawyer named Allan, who worked for Wilson’s law firm before Wilson became a judge. Allan and Lauren were de facto siblings and judge Wilson’s de facto family. Allan went on to become a high profile criminal defense lawyer, making tons of money, and is sleeping with Edie.

Got all that? So, when judge Wilson gets assigned to the IRS bombing case on the eve of trial (because the original judge has to withdraw), the head prosecutor (another slimy side character and both Lauren and Edie’s boss) assigns Lauren to be first chair, assuming she will get favorable treatment from her de facto foster father. Neither the judge, nor Lauren recuses themself from this situation, which irks Edie, who expected this to be a high-profile win for her. Now Edie is pissed at Lauren.

But that is still not the real plot. Judge Wilson is nominated for the US Supreme Court (forget that district court judges are never elevated directly to the Supremes). A handsome FBI agent named Eli conducts the background check on Judge Wilson and along the way is smitten with Lauren, whom he interviews.

Now, we finally get to the real plot, when Eli’s background check turns up something that happened 25 years earlier when Allan worked for his Mentor, Wilson, at the law firm. There are five or six scenes where various characters talk about the scandal without revealing it (a bit annoying for the reader, with no clues to guess it). Allan is frantic because Wilson intends to be honest about the scandal, even if it means he loses the nomination and even if it ruins Allan’s career.

Then, after a big fight with Allan about how Wilson’s sudden honesty will ruin him, the judge is murdered…shot in a questionable neighborhood late at night. Some local hoodlums say they saw a tall White guy driving a Lexus at the scene. The prosecutors want to charge the terrorists son, who is out on bail, but he has an iron clad alibi.

So, who killed the judge? And was it related to the still-not-revealed scandal involving Allan?

The reveal of the scandal is not nearly as juicy as expected given the long build-up. The motivation of the Judge to come clean after all these years is also not explained and frankly hard to believe. The ultimate reveal of the killer is a twist, but the climax and the monologue of confession is fairly bland and formulaic.

There are several problems with the law elements of the story. One of the unsatisfying points is that judge Wilson – the only noble character – decides that the traffic stop where the police obtained critical evidence against the terrorists was unlawful and ruled that the evidence would be suppressed. Fine. Tough for the prosecutors, but fine. (So much for Lauren getting preferential treatment from Judge Wilson.) But in the denouement at the end, the new judge reverses the decision, allows the tainted evidence, and the terrorists are convicted. What? And there are a few too many copy editing issues for a book so long in print that the author is using as a reader magnet.

The characters lack sense and their motivations and actions don’t always match. I was never able to connect and care about any of them, and the weird quasi-family of Wilson, Allan, and Lauren was more creepy than engaging.

Overall, this was a decent story with decent writing but nothing compelling and frequently confusing. Not something that will make me rush out to buy more of this author’s work, but I can see how there is potential here and maybe later stories will have better plots and characters.