SPECIAL VICTIM

Sheila Devine is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker from a  troubled background who yearns to win an Oscar. When she receives what  could be the offer of a lifetime - unlimited access to do a movie about  four young men who claim they were wrongly convicted in the brutal  attack of a female runner in New York City - she also knows there's one  gigantic catch: the prosecutor in the case was her brother, Michael, who  is now the Manhattan district attorney. But the convicted men are  represented by Rolando Ortega, the best lawyer in the city, and she  takes the job because she fears that any other filmmaker will turn the  project into a hatchet job.

When she digs  into the case, Sheila uncovers angles and developments that turn its  circumstances even murkier. The attack left the victim with permanent  damage, but the woman has carved a life for herself, and the new uproar  threatens to upend everything she's achieved. Meanwhile, Michael's role  as the lead prosecutor becomes the overriding issue in his campaign to  win a full term as district attorney. With the election drawing near,  and the list of suspects growing longer, Sheila races against time to  secure a measure of justice.

Special Victim  is the explosive sequel to Tom Coffey's widely praised Public Morals,  which examined the dynamics of a family that was shattered by a police  corruption scandal. In Special Victim, which is loosely based on the  Central Park Jogger case, Coffey dives even deeper into questions of  love, truth and loyalty, and of how the past is always present in our  lives.