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The Killing of Mindi Quintana

Jeffrey A. Cohen
ISBN 9781566499583 (hardcover)
Published in May 2010
MSRP $24.95
"Clever, twisted and ultimately insightful, Jeff Cohen's The Killing of Mindi Quintana upends legality and redefines justice - a dazzling debut novel. Cohen has created one of the most instantly despicable characters in crime fiction."
- Burl Barer, Edgar Award-winning author of Body Count and Murder in the Family
"The Killing of Mindi Quintana inspires some compelling comparisons: to Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment; William Diehl's Primal Fear; Joseph Heller's Catch-22; to Thurber's 'The Catbird Seat' and to Law and Order: Criminal Intent. The crime at the heart of the story is brutal, senseless, sensational; the investigation absorbing, frustrating. The writing is crisp and, by turns, romantic and wry. But this is a novel about people caught up in a complex tragedy of expectations and contradictions, and it's more than memorable - it's haunting."
- David Bradley, PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author of The Chaneysville Incident
"The Killing of Mindi Quintana is a brilliant look at the deviant mind, an even more astute dissection of the society that loves its criminals as celebrities. Jeffrey A. Cohen's novel is a masterfully told tale of fatal infatuation: a killer obsessed with his victim, a society fanatical for the passion, the poetry of crime. Cohen's is a deeply coveted hero - and his vindication is nothing short of shocking. This is a must-read novel."
- Former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel
"Jeffrey A. Cohen's fabulous novel skewers a peculiarly American icon: the poet-murderer, the jailhouse literary sensation. A heinous crime, a killer with a book, and literary acclaim through the backdoor of murder: What do we do when the law delivers fame instead of justice? Cohen's response is unprecedented, shocking and deeply intelligent. Society will not condone his answer - and it should not. But literature's job is done: our understanding is enlarged."
- Honorable Justice Sandra Schultz Newman, ret. Pennsylvania Supreme Court
Freddy Builder is certain he is meant for more. More than his life in corporate American bondage. Meant for more, meant for better, and lacking only, only an occasion to rise to.

And now that occasion is murder - of Mindi Quintana, an old college flame wanting simply to stay in his past.

A televised trial for Freddy is in the offing. His crime is major news from the start. Mindi is the beautiful daughter of a renowned Philadelphia businessman whose dramatic fall a few years back captivated the city.

Meanwhile, Freddy is writing the book about his relationship with Mindi everybody wants. It's a lying rewrite of her life and his own, and of their miserably thin involvement.

Coverage goes national as excerpts of Freddy's book are published to acclaim. He rises to the occasion with articulate, sympathetic jailhouse interviews, and publishes ghostwritten articles on prison issues.

A new celebrity murderer is taking the stage - a killer with a book, a jailhouse literary sensation.

Freddy's defense attorney, Philip, watches in disgust as his client builds his fame with the bones of his victim. A career public defender, Philip thought he'd seen evil in all its incarnations. He'd lost his outrage, his passion for the law, and his marriage along the way. But Freddy's case is a turning point - the public's sympathy for the poet-murderer, the societal rebel, the killer as greater soul, stirs something dormant inside.

To stop Freddy, and to vindicate Mindi, Philip will have to violate his oath, even break the law. But with the help of Mindi's best friend, Lisa, he might give Mindi back the truth of her life and death. And perhaps deliver a comeuppance - to a killer with a book.