The Finishing School

The Barnes & Noble ReviewThe Finishing School, Michele Martinez’s second novel featuring sexy federal prosecutor Melanie Vargas (and sequel to 2005’s Most Wanted), finds the soon-to-be single mother tackling her most perilous case to date.

After two students at an exclusive finishing school are found dead from heroin overdoses in a posh Park Avenue apartment — one was the stepdaughter of a shady Wall Street magnate running for the Senate — Vargas is assigned to track down and prosecute the drug dealer who supplied the girls. But when she looks deeper into the girls’ backgrounds (assisted by hunky FBI special agent Dan O’Reilly), Vargas finds that their heroin use was just the tip of a sordid iceberg that included drug smuggling, cyber-pornography, prostitution. and a multimillion-dollar embezzlement scheme.

‘The Finishing School’ is one of those rare, all-consuming novels that, once begun, leave readers little desire to do anything — eat, sleep, work, etc. — but continue onward in a state of glorious bibliophilic rapture until the very last page. It’s no surprise to learn that Martinez spent eight years as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York.

Like its savvy and thoroughly likable protagonist, ‘The Finishing School’ is intelligent, stylish, and utterly realistic. Fans of authors like Laura Lippman, Sara Paretsky, and Marcia Muller will be doing themselves a great disservice if they don’t check out this truly outstanding suspense thriller. Paul Goat Allen