Environmental and consumer advocate Brockovich (Take It from Me: Life's a Struggle but You Can Win) turns to fiction with this debut thriller, written with suspense author Lyons (Critical Condition). Her heroine, A.J. Palladino, has a lot in common with Brockovich. A.J. left home at 17 in troubled circumstances and made a name for herself as an environmental activist in a famous case but found that fame and success were hard to maintain in the legal world. Returning home with her special-needs child, A.J. finds that her West Virginia town is facing environmental ruin at the hands of a large mining corporation. She begins working with a local lawyer to stop the mountaintop removal that is ruining the landscape and the local people's health. However, her past is inextricably linked with her present. When someone takes the fight beyond litigation, home is not the safe haven A.J. had expected. VERDICT With strong character development and a fast-paced plot, this excellent first novel leaves readers anticipating further exciting adventures with A.J. Palladino.—Lisa O'Hara, Univ. of Manitoba Libs., Winnipeg

Environmental and consumer advocate Brockovich has created a protagonist in her own image in this highly melodramatic thriller, the first in a new series. Angela Joy "AJ" Palladino left Scotia, W.Va., population 867, as an unwed 17-year-old mother following a terrible accident that almost killed her. Ten years later, after success and fame in a battle against Capital Power that earned her the sobriquet "the People's Champion," she returns to Scotia, to assist lawyer Zachariah Hardy in a fight against Masterson Mining's new mountaintop removal project. When Hardy dies before AJ's arrival, she teams with Hardy's lawyer daughter, Elizabeth, to combat the company owned by dastardly Kyle Masterson and run by Kyle's son, Cole, father of AJ's son, David. As the two women wage an uphill battle against murderous opposition, Brockovich's environmental message gets buried in a sludge pile of clichés. (Mar.)