cover image Rock Bottom

Rock Bottom

Erin Brockovich with C.J. Lyons, Perseus/Vanguard, $25.95 (272p) ISBN 978-1-59315-625-1

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.)