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.
Tom Coffey grew up on Staten Island, where he attended Catholic schools. His first novel, The Serpent Club, was published in 1999 by Pocket Books and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. His second novel, Miami Twilight, came out two years later. In 2008 Toby Press printed Blood Alley, which also earned a starred review from PW. In 2015 the independent Oak Tree Press published Bright Morning Star. Tom graduated from the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and attended film school at the University of Southern California. After a long career in journalism that included stints at The Miami Herald, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and New York Newsday, Tom retired in 2023 from The New York Times. That same year, he signed a deal with Level Best Books for The Devine Trilogy, which traces the arc of law enforcement in New York City from the 1980s to the present. The first book in the series, Public Morals, was published to wide acclaim. Tom lives in Lower Manhattan with his wife and daughter.
