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Its Own Defense
Berlin Evers is Clarion County's victim/witness advocate and she sees the effects of domestic violence on a daily basis. What no one knows is her personal history of abuse, filled with dark secrets and shocking trauma. When she sees victims try and fail to leave abusive relationships, she takes it very personally.
Brian Malloy hasn't been a detective in Clarion for long when he begins to suspect a serial killer in town. He has always felt admiration for Berlin, but it turns into something more when they finally meet on a case. He begins to try to impress her with tales of hunting down a serial killer, unaware that his suspect is much closer than he realizes.
Its Own Defense is part psychological thriller, part dramatic discourse on domestic violence. Powerful and disturbing, it explores the ripple effects of violence in our society and stresses the importance of personal accountability.
Brian Malloy hasn't been a detective in Clarion for long when he begins to suspect a serial killer in town. He has always felt admiration for Berlin, but it turns into something more when they finally meet on a case. He begins to try to impress her with tales of hunting down a serial killer, unaware that his suspect is much closer than he realizes.
Its Own Defense is part psychological thriller, part dramatic discourse on domestic violence. Powerful and disturbing, it explores the ripple effects of violence in our society and stresses the importance of personal accountability.
368 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 28, 2013
2 people want to read
About the author
Laura Hetzel
7 books4 followersLaura Hetzel’s debut novel, Its Own Defense, was published in April, 2013, and has been the subject of newspaper articles in both the Washington/Ozaukee County Daily News and The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Hetzel has been published in various literary magazines and has won academic and editorial awards. Hetzel has led seminars on writing and poetry for the Kettle Moraine Writers’ Conference and appeared on their Writers’ Panel. Hetzel currently resides in southeast Wisconsin. She is the author of the Berlin Evers Series: Its Own Defense, Ripples and What the Darkness Fears. Other novels include Breakwall, Neon Neverland, and Wisteria, a southern gothic novel of voodoo and haunted manors in the deep south. Her newest book, Persona, is a collection of her award-winning poetry and short stories.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 3, 2017
Its Own Defense by Laura Hetzel is a high paced, intriguing novel that I think is a little like marmite – you’re either going to love it or hate it!
The novel follows our two protagonists, and switches between each person’s narratives. Berlin is a female witness advocate for domestic abuse victims, and Brian a male police detective. Brian is tasked with identifying a serial killer within the town who is preying on the abusers within domestic abuse cases, and as the killer keeps killing, will he realise the killer has been under his nose the whole time?!
Firstly, I just want to touch on the aesthetics of the book – it deserves such better cover art. The cover art would not appeal to me on a shelf or website, and I don’t feel it represents the story as well as it could. Also, the line spacing in the book is really large – it must have been 1.5 or 2.0 line spacing, which personally isn’t my ideal. Anyhow, never judge a book by its cover!
My opinion on the novel fluctuated throughout – at times, I thought it was such a strong story, and at others, the plot flaws frustrated me deeply (I REALLY need to stop getting so emotionally involved in the books I read!). From almost the opening page, you realise that Berlin is the serial killer – not exactly *spoiler alert* worthy seeing as it is so blindingly obvious by a few pages in – so the novel isn’t a ‘who done it?!’ kind of novel as I originally thought it would be. Instead, we follow Berlin through her actions, see her describe past events, flashbacks and reveal her inner most secrets.
In alternating chapters, we follow Brian, as he struggles to piece together the extremely obvious clues that all point to Berlin. This is probably the point of the book that frustrated me the most – IT’S BLOODY OBVIOUS BRIAN! For me, it made Brian come across as kind of slow or unintelligent – or maybe it’s meant to be an accurate representation of the American police force, in which case: uh oh.
That aside, I actually really enjoyed the storyline – I liked Berlin as a character 80% of the time (the other 20% she just seemed completely pyscho) – and I think the book deals with a controversial and difficult subject well. It is rather graphic on the domestic abuse, so could be upsetting or potentially triggering for some readers. Whilst it does have very positive elements within it, and I could easily see how it could help someone in an abusive relationship, I would definitely recommend readers proceed with caution.
In terms of how the book read, apart from the large line spacing as mentioned before, the book was pretty easy to read. The only points I’d like to note would be that Berlin and Brian are rather similar both aesthetically and verbally – more distinctive names would have been preferential for me. Also, around the middle of the book, it begins to repeat certain sentences. I almost feel as though maybe a few things were chopped and changed around in the editing process, but then forgot to get edited out. I’m not sure… but it bugged me. I’d be like – didn’t I just read this?
Overall, I rate this book a 3/5. I did enjoy the storyline, and was always looking forward to picking up the book, but it isn’t something I’d recommend to everyone due to the sensitive nature of the story, and the flaws I’ve discussed above kept nagging in my mind whilst I was reading.
Reviewed by Jodie.K on www.whisperingstories.com
The novel follows our two protagonists, and switches between each person’s narratives. Berlin is a female witness advocate for domestic abuse victims, and Brian a male police detective. Brian is tasked with identifying a serial killer within the town who is preying on the abusers within domestic abuse cases, and as the killer keeps killing, will he realise the killer has been under his nose the whole time?!
Firstly, I just want to touch on the aesthetics of the book – it deserves such better cover art. The cover art would not appeal to me on a shelf or website, and I don’t feel it represents the story as well as it could. Also, the line spacing in the book is really large – it must have been 1.5 or 2.0 line spacing, which personally isn’t my ideal. Anyhow, never judge a book by its cover!
My opinion on the novel fluctuated throughout – at times, I thought it was such a strong story, and at others, the plot flaws frustrated me deeply (I REALLY need to stop getting so emotionally involved in the books I read!). From almost the opening page, you realise that Berlin is the serial killer – not exactly *spoiler alert* worthy seeing as it is so blindingly obvious by a few pages in – so the novel isn’t a ‘who done it?!’ kind of novel as I originally thought it would be. Instead, we follow Berlin through her actions, see her describe past events, flashbacks and reveal her inner most secrets.
In alternating chapters, we follow Brian, as he struggles to piece together the extremely obvious clues that all point to Berlin. This is probably the point of the book that frustrated me the most – IT’S BLOODY OBVIOUS BRIAN! For me, it made Brian come across as kind of slow or unintelligent – or maybe it’s meant to be an accurate representation of the American police force, in which case: uh oh.
That aside, I actually really enjoyed the storyline – I liked Berlin as a character 80% of the time (the other 20% she just seemed completely pyscho) – and I think the book deals with a controversial and difficult subject well. It is rather graphic on the domestic abuse, so could be upsetting or potentially triggering for some readers. Whilst it does have very positive elements within it, and I could easily see how it could help someone in an abusive relationship, I would definitely recommend readers proceed with caution.
In terms of how the book read, apart from the large line spacing as mentioned before, the book was pretty easy to read. The only points I’d like to note would be that Berlin and Brian are rather similar both aesthetically and verbally – more distinctive names would have been preferential for me. Also, around the middle of the book, it begins to repeat certain sentences. I almost feel as though maybe a few things were chopped and changed around in the editing process, but then forgot to get edited out. I’m not sure… but it bugged me. I’d be like – didn’t I just read this?
Overall, I rate this book a 3/5. I did enjoy the storyline, and was always looking forward to picking up the book, but it isn’t something I’d recommend to everyone due to the sensitive nature of the story, and the flaws I’ve discussed above kept nagging in my mind whilst I was reading.
Reviewed by Jodie.K on www.whisperingstories.com
February 15, 2024
Not what I thought was going to happen from one chapter to another. Great one!
February 17, 2024
really good! i couldn’t put it down!
it did take me a couple chapters to realize who the point of views were but once i locked that down it was so good
it did take me a couple chapters to realize who the point of views were but once i locked that down it was so good
November 22, 2013
I loved the book and the writing. I was quickly taken in by the psychological thriller. It is actually fiction AND "non-fiction" in the aspect that there are real lessons about domestic abuse/violence. Forget about the main character and the story behind her and this could be written as a text book for preventing domestic abuse. The author made the great point about what abused women teach there sons and daughters by letting the abuser continue. These children are learning how to be "damaged" adults. I would recommend anyone in such situations read this and learn some very important truths and how to "save" themselves and their families. Of this, I know something about!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews