Heart Attack

Change of Heart is the 15th offering from prolific author Jodi Picoult, whose knack of turning moral dilemmas that capture the issue-of-the-moment into dramatic, page-turning sagas has made her a best selling author both in the UK and her native America. Unfortunately, churning out at least a book a year increases the likelihood of a lazy “novel by numbers”, as is amply demonstrated here.

Clearly meant to open up a debate on capital punishment, this time we’re asked to consider Shay, an inmate on death row. The heart problems of his victim’s daughter, eleven year old Claire, mean she’s on the waiting list for a heart transplant – which, by a stroke of luck, the prisoner’s heart is a perfect match for (details such as differing ages and relative sizes of a heart being no match for the Picoult story-machine).

The problem? Lethal injection would still the heart, leaving it unusable, so Shay embarks on a legal challenge for death by hanging as a viable alternative. But does the recipient want a heart from the man who killed her father? So far, so Jerry Springer. It doesn’t end there, however.

No, the other central storyline incorporates “miracles”, the Gnostic gospels (widely regarded as heresy by the church when discovered in 1945 and admirably researched by Ms. Picoult as always) and an ever-widening belief that the prisoner is, in fact, the Messiah. Add a “trendy” priest who was, by an incredible coincidence, on the jury that convicted Shay and Maggie, a one-dimensional Jewish lawyer who’s more concerned about the size of her thighs and the relationship with her mother than anything else, and the whole collapses into a farce (or the most sub-standard soap you can think of).

Whilst die-hard Picoult fans or those deliberating spiritual salvation will no doubt lap this up, with the author using “miracles” as an excuse to shore up any plot-holes and Father Michael starting to believe Shay is, in fact, the son of God (“I.