DiNunzio's Big Day, with Bees

Accused - Lisa Scottoline

I’m sure there are other ditz-lit series out there besides Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, but in all honesty I think one is enough. That’s why I tend to cringe whenever Lisa Scottoline digs into her Rostato and Associates file and pulls out another Mary DiNunzio tale. But Lisa doesn’t ask me about my preferences, so she did it anyway: she wrote Accused.

But we can’t call the firm Rosato and Associate anymore, can we: on page one, we learn that DiNunzio is the first woman at the all-woman firm to make partner. Yay, Mary. The celebration (champagne in styrofoam cups?) is cut short by the arrival of a potential client, however: she’s a 13-year-old apiarist (bee-keeper) named Allegra Gardner – yep, Philly royalty. Allegra thinks the man sentenced six years ago in her sister’s murder was unjustly convicted, and wants him set free. Mary will, of course, be glad to help. Problems? There are (at least) two: first is that Allegra’s one-percenter parents don’t want the case reopened, and the second is that the prisoner – Lonnie Stall, an African-American who could’ve been a Huxtable kid before… well, you know – says he belongs where he is.

Complications? The usual: Mary’s also getting married, but she’s strangely reluctant about it; she and bosom buddy Judy Carrier are at odds over the case, and Allegra’s parents just had her committed to a high-end looney bin. We all know, however, that Mary will save the day and that everyone will be super-happy by the end of the day. 

So what?

After eleven books in the Rosato and Associates Series, Lisa Scottoline started a “new” series with Accused by simply making DiNunzio a partner – now it's the Rosato and DiNunzio series. It’s no better, though, as later demonstrated by the second book in the new series, Betrayed. 

There’s not much good about the new series, unless you will enjoy the filler about bee-keeping. There’s plenty bad, however, including a massive overdose of Ma and Pa DiNunzio and the three Tonys (no, not “Tony! Toni! Toné!). The mystery parts, as usual, lack any useful clues as to the real killer’s identity (come on: you didn’t really think Lonnie did it, did you?) beyond the obligatory red herring – another Philly royalty one-percenter, this one a pure schmuck. And, of course, you can expect the cliché “dead cell phone” plot point as our intrepid protagonist enters the danger zone.

The book also has serious continuity problems: at one point Mary’s parents are described as in their eighties, though they still expect Mary to give them their first grandkids once she and fiancé, Anthony (another Tony!), marry – there’s a medical miracle in there somewhere…; DiNunzio and Carrier start out with iPhones but by about page 150 suddenly have regressed to BlackBerrys; and Mary’s driving around in her murdered husband’s BMW 2002, a model discontinued almost 40 years ago in 1977. Possible, yes – but likely? No.


With poor plotting, continuity problems, and cliché galore, it looks as though Scottoline wrote this installment on autopilot. If I were you, I’d give Accused a pass if it isn’t free.