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Relentless Pursuit: A True Story of Family, Murder, and the Prosecutor Who Wouldn't Quit
by Kevin Flynn
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Putnam Adult (2007-03-01)
ISBN: 039915406X
EAN: 9780399154065
Dewy Decimal #: 364.1523092
Hardcover: 384 pages
SKU: 07050122
Condition: New As issued no jac
Comments: Trade Paperback. Uncorrected Proof in like new condition. No marks or creases and appears unread. Beautiful book.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
If One L is the book to read before law school, Relentless Pursuit is the book to read after-a real-life legal thriller that shows, from the inside, a prosecutor's quest to deliver justice to a family devastated by murder.
What happened to Diane Hawkins and her daughter Katrina-a brutal double murder in which the girl's heart was cut from her body-devastated a Washington, D.C., community and left its mark on everyone involved in the subsequent investigation. Especially moved was federal homicide prosecutor Kevin Flynn. He had handled any number of grisly murders, and was no stranger to the depravity of the human soul. Yet the way Hawkins's family and friends rallied together to help each other through the tragedy-and the generosity they ex-tended to Flynn, whose own father was dying of cancer at the time-turned this case into a personal mission. He was determined to use his position to effect real closure, to right a wrong-to bring justice on behalf of the victims and their families.
Relentless Pursuit is the story of that journey to justice, an intensely gripping beat-by-beat reconstruction of the events as they unfold-the murder, the arrest, the trial, the verdict-told with astonishing candor, and providing a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the life of a dedicated prosecutor. Above all, it's about healing and community, a story in which, in the end, the system works and-for once-justice prevails.
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Customer Reviews
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Just Doing His Job
Rating  (2)
Date: 2008-03-11
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
For some reason, I thought this book was about the prosecutor's relentless pursuit to bring a hard to catch criminal to trial. It wasn't. The criminal is caught the night of the crime, and arrested soon after. There was no relentless pursuit. Just trying to gather evidence and outsmart the other lawyer, which wasn't too difficult. There was no way this guy was getting off. It's written from the prosecutor's viewpoint, including his family's illnesses, etc.
When he describes the crime scene, the interviews with the victims' families, he does a good job - but I had to skip the pages and pages of preaching regarding their deaths. But it gets really bogged down when he describes his family, and when he describes the prosecutor's job, step by step - as if we don't know the process of a trial. He doesn't seem to know the difference between coveralls and overalls, and although he's a homicide prosecutor, he first heard of blood spatter analysis only a few months prior to the investigation.
I didn't see anything regarding any real plot that the victims' family members had to kill the guy before he could go to trial, but I could have skipped it when going over the boring parts. The family wanted to take revenge, sure, but who doesn't. But they knew he was arrested and going to trial.
I also didn't want to know his every thought (10 years later) as he questioned each witness. I would say that 15% of this book is good, the rest is filler.
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Really hits home!
Rating  (5)
Date: 2007-11-15
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
I think that Kevin Flynn has done a wonderful job on this book. Being as though I actually have a close relationship with the Hawkins family, the daughter of Diane (Shante) is my niece and nephews mother, it answered all of the questions that you would never ask. I knew how the Diane and Trina were killed, but it gave more than someone just giving their opinion. This was the actual facts from a very credible source. Even though this has happened almost 15 years ago, it brought back a lot of old feelings to the surface. However, it was two thumbs up as far as I was concerned!
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An unusual perspective for a true-crime book.
Rating  (3)
Date: 2007-09-29
4 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
True crime, sometimes, is far less interesting to read than crime fiction. In fiction, the author has many choices that a true crime writer doesn't. Fiction can place the reader inside the mind of the killer and/or inside the mind of the victim. Seldom is the author of a true crime book given that opportunity. Some writers can speculate with a great deal of seeming accuracy. That's not the road that Kevin Flynn takes in his book.
RELENTLESS PURSUIT is told from the perspective of an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington, DC; he is prosecuting a man for the brutal murder of a woman and her daughter
Diane Hawkins and Katrina Harris were murdered in May of 1993. The trial took place over a year later, in August of 1994. This may seem like a speedy trial, all things considered. The family of Diane Hawkins and Katrina Harris didn't think so; they knew right away who had killed these two people and had a difficult time with the slow and measured pace of the legal process. It took cool heads to persuade some members of the family not to take justice into their own hands.
RELENTLESS PURSUIT is not the best true crime out there; Flynn can be redundant and verbose. The story he tells, however, is compelling and fascinating. It is unclear until the verdict is delivered in court whether or not he has done his job as a prosecutor. And the reader does want to know the verdict. While the case is already decided in the minds of the reader (probably) and in Flynn's mind, he makes us all too aware of the realities of a jury trial, the complexities of presenting a good case, and how little things can undermine the best presentation.
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Amazing first book
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-08-08
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
This is a true crime written somewhat similarly to Ann Rule. A pair of victims, Diane Hawkins and her daughter, Katrina Harris, are brutally murdered. It is Kevin Flynn's job as a DC prosecutor to put the alleged murderer behind bars. In his tale, Mr. Flynn expresses outrage at their horrific deaths and loses the cool mask of distant prosecutor. He becomes involved with other family members and friends of the victims and contrasts their closeness to his own small family's experiences with his father's impending death and birth of his first child.
This book is clear and well written, although it will take some readers a bit to "get into" the book. Stick with it, it is well worth the read. I have bought this book for numerous friends and all have appreciated this thoughtful, insightful read.
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Well-written and compelling book
Rating  (4)
Date: 2007-04-24
4 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
Kevin Flynn is a homicide prosecutor in a city that has one of the highest homicide rates in the country, Washington, D.C. Being surrounded constantly with stories and photographs of death and murder, you would think he would have grown a thick skin, learned to objectify the cases and move through them in a detached manner.
But this case was different. The murders of 40-year-old Diane and 13-year-old Katrina Hawkins left a lasting impression on everyone associated with the case. Their murder investigation was one of the most brutal that police and prosecutors ever worked. Over a year after the crime occurred, during the trial, Detected Combee would still grow quiet when testifying about what he saw in the Hawkins house that day.
But this case is not about the terrible method these two victims were murdered. To quote from the book:
It's a story of extremes: the worst and the best the world can offer, humanity at its most brutal and most noble. It's the story of two families -- mine and another from a world that I thought I knew but didn't -- two families full of ordinary people who did their best under awful circumstances.
Relentless Pursuit does indeed follow the Hawkins case, from the initial night of the murders May 25, 1993 to the prosecution in August 15, 1994. But there is much more to the case than just the horror and the story of how they caught the man responsible.
This is also the story of the Hawkins and Flynn families, which became irrevocably linked together. The Hawkins family suffered one of the worst losses a family can, the loss of both a sister and strong influence in the family, and a child, who had just begun to show her gifts and talents to the world. But through it all, they clung to their faith in God, which also served to help their new-found family member, prosecutor Kevin Flynn.
The Flynn family though, was going through its own trials. Kevin's mother was suffering from depression and shortly after he began work on this monumnetal case, his father was stricken with cancer. Through the entire case, Kevin is required to balance his work and family life, including his wife and child, and try not to let anyone down. And part of that includes the Hawkins, who look to him as the only man that can bring them any measure of justice on Earth.
The book is told in a compelling style, taking us through the case, from the night the murders occurred through the entire case. There are procedural sections to the book, such as descriptions of how certain courtroom processes work, but that does not get in the way to the story, which is what the book is really all about.
Relentless Pursuit is not a book for those looking to learn about how the law really works, but you will learn a great deal about how the defense and prosecution work together and against one another, how much power a judge can wield, and some of the reasons why cases don't work out as cleanly as they do on television.
In the end, this book is just what the quotation above says, it is a story of two families. And it is an excellent book.
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