Eyewitness: A Josie Bates Thriller (The Witness Series Book 5)

What happens in this beginning prologue describes an accidental death, and the horror that follows a family from generation to generation. I meet Josie Bates with a stranger at her door. It is present time, Hermosa Beach California. She is awoken by someone banging at her front door during a raging thunder storm. The stranger is begging her to help a boy, Billy Zuni who is drowning. She arrives with Hannah, as he is being pulled out of the water. Josie gets to the Zuni home to find a bloodbath, A man lies on the couch dead, shot in the chest.

As she stumbles further she finds another body face down, a male, all dressed in drag. Going up the stairs she finds Rosa Zuni near death, her throat slashed and covered in blood. Josie being the lawyer that she is, skips into legal mode. She heads for the hospital to Billy, hoping he will not be charged with this carnage and to possibly solve this mystery. Josie is about to be married to Archer, a sometime P.

There is also Hannah, who Josie is guardian for, a typical teenager in many ways, always seeing the world in black and white…. I have certainly want to read about Hannah and Archer and Josie and see more of how they are and who they are and how they got there. Eyewitness gives the reader two stories, America in real time and lives of those past family members trying to deal with life in a backward country, with backward and uncaring governments and dealing with a Blood Feud that will destroy many lives. As I said Ms Forster is no stranger to me, her writing is superb, her thrillers are heavenly.

We are always amazed that through all this we possibly may solve a mystery, possibly good wins over evil, and are always better for the read. Eyewitness is hard, dangerous, and skillfully written.

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A Do Not Miss. The backstory scenes at the start of many chapters were distracting and broke the flow of the story. They also gave too much away and diluted any build-up of tension in the story because I figured out the core of the plot around Chapter 4.

This story would have been better without them. By now flubs like that should be a thing of the past in all e-books. Another good book This was yet another good book in the series. It was exciting and hard to put down. I will be continuing on to the next one. May 08, Coral rated it it was amazing Shelves: Discussion in the BookBunny Group. This is not the easiest Forster to get into, not that that will deter her fans.

Don't let it deter you in the unlikely event that this is the first one you have sampled. When you do catch up with the characters, a problem we share with the local police, one will be rewarded in as least as big a way as is customary with a Forster. The parallel story telling requires a little effort, a temporary requirement to multi-task. I found it necessary to be relaxed about remembering the early flood of chara This is not the easiest Forster to get into, not that that will deter her fans.

I found it necessary to be relaxed about remembering the early flood of characters, and corpses. Soon enough we get to know all the characters we need very well. There is always a lot going on, plenty of energy to keep the mind's light-bulb lit. The mix of cultural expectation, and the deeply engrained private pasts that we all carry with us are the keys to this powerful read.

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Our own histories have complex emotional affects, just as do those of Forster's characters. The parallel storytelling, the sub-story that starts the chapters will provide the glue. You will need the glue, but be relaxed about watching it set.

The witness theme gets a clever re-design, rather than just a new coat of paint, in this one. Clashing colours just take a little getting used too, Forster doesn't write in beige. Waves from all the characters colourful pasts impinge on the physical forces of the present. They flash through the pages creating yet another brilliant Forster novel. Witness the crimes for yourself. Josie is an attorney and the books in the series are legal thrillers, yet they have more heart than the typical book in this genre, largely because the legal conflict is usually much more personal for Josie.

This is also unlike a typical legal thriller because of the way it weaves elements of a foreign culture and how that can influence the life of US immigrants into the story. I highly recommend this book for fans of legal thrillers. May have received a free review copy. Aug 24, Robin Webster rated it really liked it. As with the previous four novels in this series, the book is set in Hermosa Beach California and comprises of the usual characters that will be well known to those who have read her previous books.

However, I was completely wrong. The story unfolded into yet another original storyline and absorbed me right up until the finish. It is difficult to discuss the storyline without giving away spoilers. I do feel with her books that it is important to start with the first in the series, Hostile Witness in order to have a more informed understanding of the characters that surround our heroin Josie Bates.

To be honest I struggled to get into this book. There were a few times I almost gave up. It was the frustration of not knowing what was going on that got me, it was like I was reading two different books. I'm pleased I persisted as once I found out what was going on it all sort of made sense in a way and when I eventually got hooked I had to read to the end to find out how everything turned out.

However, I don't think the technique of writing two different stories in alternate chapters quite wor To be honest I struggled to get into this book. However, I don't think the technique of writing two different stories in alternate chapters quite worked. Billy's hand is injured. While they both search for a way to escape the cult, Josie and Archer are frantically searching for them. This ends in a breathtaking showdown. I am hoping for just one more Josie Bates book This is an incredible finale - the kind that leaves a reader sleep deprived because you can't put the darn book down!

Well done Rebecca; fantastic finale for a fantastic series. This latest book in the Witness Series is very different than Rebecca Forester's others in several ways. I still enjoyed this but could barely keep reading which was so unlike her other books. I pushed thru knowing she is an author I enjoy. There is a back story that kept interrupting the flow for me and it was not making sense. You will find how it ties in at the end and be relieved.

The end all makes sense finally and is actually quite good how those unusual characters all came together. I think I must have missed one in this series and need to find out which one. It's not critical to read them in order but I thought it was best for me since it makes reading these stories all the more fun. Rebecca went to much trouble to research subject matter that would not normally be found in her other work, so I applaud the effort she put into this book. I hope she continues this series as Josie Bates and her friends seem like real characters to me now and if you read these you will see why.

Her other books are also good but the Witness Series is my favorite. A couple of days and you have read one of these books feeling like you want more. As the writer of a 4 book series I was fascinated to watch this writer's style develop. From the 1st to to last in this series, Forster became one of my favorite authors. I loved the family, changing environments and perspective from each different character.

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My only input would have been to provide some kind of closure regarding Billy. The reader just finished going on a horrific journey with him, only to have to guess. I placed him with Mama Cecelia - the mom he never had and son she deserved. That's the great thing about digital. I have provided additional clarification based on my readers input.

You could do it with only a few sentences added somewhere near the end. But that aside, I loved the series and will definitely read all the stand alones next. Get to Know Us. Enabled Average Customer Review: Delivery and Returns see our delivery rates and policies thinking of returning an item? There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. This series just gets better and better. Josie once again champions for causes she believes in and can find herself in sticky situations. This keeps you wanting more and more as you start to understand the characters and their foibles.

Very impressive writer, has the ability to make you really feel for the characters. Looking forward to more! Rebecca's Witness Series is a fantastic read and I thoroughly recommend starting at the beginning if you have never met Josie Bates. Thanks Rebecca, I look forward to the next episode. See all 4 reviews. Most helpful customer reviews on Amazon. Mike Billington author of Murder in the Rainy Season. This is one scary book. Not because it's populated with zombies or vampires, werewolves and things that go bump in the night.

No, this is a scary book because it is populated by men and women who are elected to serve the people but who, in their ideological madness, perpetrate horrible crimes against citizens of the United States. The most scary thing about this novel, however, is that it is not only plausible, it's rooted in actual fact. Author Rebecca Forster's 'Forgotten Witness' is based on the startling revelations in the s that the U.

In effect, elitist U. If you think that sounds like what happened in Nazi Germany in the s and during World War II and not in America it's time that you think again because, in truth, it actually did happen here and, for all we know, it may still be happening. In her book Forster imagines what might have happened to some of the victims of those unethical, immoral experiments once their minds were shattered. Her heroine, Josie Bates, must come to terms with what was done to members of her own family as part of those experiments - something she was not aware of until many years later.

An attorney, who doesn't always act like a buttoned-down lawyer, Josie is singled out one afternoon by a man who appears demented and hands her a small package of information. That information sets her on a trail that will take her from the corridors of power in Washington, DC to the paradise that is Hawaii.