Bodily Harm

Thanks to my son-in-law, Mateo, I’ve discovered the work of Robert Dugoni, and Bodily Harm is the sixth book I’ve read by Dugoni. Once again, the protagonist is David Sloane, the third book of the series. Sloane has a most interesting start in life as a charismatic child preacher in Mexico, but he escaped the slaughter by the cartel attack on his village and secreted to the U.S. Unfortunately, he ended up in the U.S. foster system and saw early life from a cascade of different and dysfunctional foster homes. Somehow, he was able to extract himself from those traumas and to educate himself right through law school. He became one persuasive and successful lawyer, but his life was bereft of companionship and love. Sloane managed his early adult years by paying attention to how he should act to get ahead, not how he really felt. 

Given his brilliance and attractive appearance, he finally started a relationship with Tina and she proved to be a critically important person for him. She taught him how to love. Tina had a son by a prior marriage which she had left because it was simply emotionally dead and flat. But, she produced a wonderful son, but life with her husband was troubled by his substance abuse. With Tina and Jake, David had a family and life was good. But Sloane got involved in a case that involved the world of toys. There was big money involved in the development and marketing of a new toy created by an independent toy maker, Kyle Horgan. Kendall Toys bought the toy from Horgan who then returned to his life of isolation. Kendall’s main competitor was Galaxy Toys and those two were out to control the production of this new miracle toy and for the survival of their own companies. Early marketing results suggested that it was bound to be the next hot item – the toy was a sort of super transformer which was made of plastic but contained a number of small but very powerful magnets. However, there was a design in its production. If the magnets were not contained in a high but expensive plastic, then those magnets could be fatal to youngsters who swallowed them.

 

When the prototypes were made with a cheaper grade of plastic, a couple kids did died.

But their cause of death was not understood to be due to the magnets. A wonderful doctor was successfully sued by Sloan, and he won a huge judgement against Dr. Douvalidis. When Sloan learned Douvalidis had done nothing wrong, it was too late because the doctor had committed suicide. It was then that Sloan turned his attention to Kendall, the toy’s manufacturer. This was literally a dirty business and an attempt was made on Sloan’s life, only to have his wife get caught in the middle of a gun fight that left her dead.

 

I won’t reveal any more of this excellent plot. Not only is the plot bold, interesting, and believable, the characters themselves are very well developed. This book deserves a 5-star rating. You won’t be disappointed.