“Could it be a dream, a nightmare? Was she really there, awake in the darkness contemplating her son’s final hours? Of course she was. She had lived the nightmare for nine years now, ever since the day she’d been told that Donté had not only been arrested but also confessed. The nightmare was a book as thick as her Bible, every chapter another tragedy, every page filled with sorrow and disbelief.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (JAN 09, 2011)

Keith Schroeder is a thirty-five year old Lutheran minister in Topeka, Kansas. One day, Dana, Keith’s wife, greets a stranger who walks into the church. The man identifies himself as Travis Boyette, age forty-four, a former prison inmate who is currently in a halfway house and is about to be released. Keith agrees to speak to Travis; the meeting will change their lives.

Meanwhile, in East Texas, a twenty-seven year old black man, Donté Drumm, is awaiting execution for a murder that he allegedly committed in 1999. Under duress, Donté confessed to killing seventeen-year-old Nicole Yarber and dumping her body into the Red River. The body was never found. Although he later recanted, Drumm was convicted of abduction, rape, and murder. He has steadfastly maintained his innocence for the past nine years. Donté’s lawyer, the zealous Robbie Flak, has done everything in his power to get his client’s conviction overturned, but time and appeals are running out. Drumm’s execution is scheduled to take place in a few days.

John Grisham’s The Confession is a mesmerizing story about the ways in which justice is meted out in places where the color of one’s skin and the desire of politicians to be reelected may carry more weight than the facts of a case. Grisham keeps the narrative moving briskly by moving back and forth between Keith and Travis (who become allies of sorts) and Donté, his family, and their defense team. The suspense stems from the relentlessly ticking clock.

Grisham is a savvy writer who knows how to spin an involving tale. His brisk dialogue, sardonic humor, and lively characters effortlessly hold our attention. Unfortunately, the book is a bit too long and, in addition, the author is heavy-handed in his depiction of certain cops, prosecutors, and judges as arrogant, corrupt, and self-serving, while Robbie and his colleagues are unfailingly altruistic and conscientious. The good vs. evil theme is a bit too pat. To his credit, however, Grisham effectively demonstrates that anyone may resort to violence under certain circumstances; that even “good citizens” can be misguided in their thinking; that criminals are often products of their severely dysfunctional families; that irresponsible reporters will stoop extremely low to garner headlines; and that our system of doling out punishment is far from perfect. The Confession will undoubtedly generate heated debate about the merits of the death penalty.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 1,203 readers
PUBLISHER:	Doubleday; 1St Edition edition (October 26, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	John Grisham
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	The Broker Bleachers The King of Torts Skipping Christmas

Bibliography:

• A Time to Kill (1988)
• The Firm (1991)
• The Pelican Brief (1992)
• The Client (1993)
• The Chamber (1994)
• The Rainmaker (1995)
• The Runaway Jury (1996)
• The Partner (1997)
• The Street Lawyer (1998)
• The Testament (1999)
• The Brethen (2000)
• A Painted House (2001)
• Skipping Christmas (2001)
• The Summons (2002)
• The King of Torts ( 2003)
• Bleachers (2003)
• The Last Juror (2004)
• The Broker (2005)
• Playing for Pizza (2007)
• The Appeal (2008)
• The Associate (2009)
• Ford Country: Stories (2009)
• The Confession (2010)
• The Litigators (2011)
• The Racketeer (2012)
• Sycamore Row (October 2013)

Theodore Boone series:

• Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer (2010)
• Theodore Boone: The Abduction (2011)
• Theodore Boone: The Accused (2012)
• Theodore Boone: The Activist (May 2013)

Nonfiction:

• The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (2006)

Movies from Books:

• The Firm (1993)
• The Pelican Brief (1993)
• The Client (1994)
• A Time to Kill (1996)
• The Chamber (1996)
• The Rainmaker (1997)

and an original screenplay:

• The Gingerbread Man (1997)

“It always bothered Bosch when he saw justice and the law being manipulated by smart lawyers. His part of the process was pure. He started at a crime scene and followed the evidence to a killer.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky (OCT 5, 2010)

Michael Connelly brings together criminal defense attorney Michael (Mickey) Haller and his half-brother, the cynical and battle-scarred LAPD Detective Harry Bosch, in Connelly’s latest legal thriller, The Reversal. Mickey calls himself “the defender of the damned,” a job he has had for over twenty years. “During that time,” he states, “I’d grown a suspicion and distrust of prosecutors and police….” Still, the Los Angeles District Attorney convinces Mickey to become an independent special prosecutor in the second trial of forty-eight year old Jason Jessup. The defendant has spent twenty-four years in San Quentin for abducting and strangling twelve-old Melissa Landy. Over the last two decades, Jessup has vociferously proclaimed his innocence while filing numerous motions and appeals in an attempt to have his conviction overturned.

Because of possible irregularities during the first prosecution as well as new DNA evidence, the California Supreme Court reversed Jessup’s conviction and sent the case back to Los Angeles County “for either retrial or dismissal of the charges.” Against his better judgment, Mickey agrees to prosecute Jessup, partly because it will give him an opportunity to work with deputy district attorney Maggie McPherson (one of his two ex-wives) and investigator Harry Bosch.

Jessup has a groundswell of support from the liberal media and an organization of lawyers known as the Genetic Justice Project. Although the physical evidence against the defendant is a bit shaky, the eyewitness testimony of Melissa’s sister, Sarah, who was thirteen when the murder occurred, has never wavered. Now thirty-seven, Sarah still stands by her identification of Jessup as Melissa’s abductor. However, Sarah has a history of drug use and run-ins with the law which the defense will undoubtedly exploit in an attempt to discredit her.

This is one of Connelly’s most suspenseful and engrossing legal thrillers in years. It has incisive and realistic dialogue, compelling courtroom scenes, well-drawn characters, a smooth and lucid prose style, and an absorbing, well-constructed plot. The only false note is that when Mickey is on the scene, he is the first-person narrator; the rest of the time, Connelly writes in the third person. This is slightly jarring; Connelly might have been better off sticking to the third person throughout. In any event, Haller shares the spotlight with Bosch and McPherson. In addition, FBI profiler Rachel Walling makes a strong cameo appearance when Bosch asks for her help in analyzing Jessup’s behavior. Harry stands out as the person most invested in nailing Jessup, partly because he is the single parent of a cherished daughter, and partly because he has worked tirelessly on hundreds of homicides during his thirty-five year career as a cop. He is passionate about finding the bad guys and putting them away so that they cannot do any more damage.

In The Reversal, the author demonstrates how politics and public opinion influence the legal process; how the stress of trying a high-profile case can lead to mistakes in judgment; and how, no matter how carefully they plan, lawyers and detectives should expect the unexpected. Readers who enjoy feel-good endings may balk at the novel’s disquieting finale. Others may find Connelly’s conclusion thought-provoking, daring, and original. It certainly demonstrates how life’s vicissitudes and the capriciousness of fate can undermine the search for truth and pervert the course of justice.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 94 readers
PUBLISHER:	Little, Brown and Company (October 5, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Michael Connelly
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	MostlyFiction (like many others) are great fans of Michael Connelly. As such, we have reviewed a lot of his books over the years: For these Harry Bosch reviews, go here: City of Bones, Lost Light, The Narrows, The Closers, Echo Park, and The Overlook For a review his latest Harry Bosch, Nine Dragons, go here. For these Michael Haller reviews, go here: The Lincoln Lawyer and Brass Verdict For these stand-alone mysteries, go here: Bloodwork and Chasing the Dime And go here for a  review of The Scarecrow

Bibliography:

LAPD Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch Series

• The Black Echo (1992)
• The Black Ice (1993)
• The Concrete Blonde (1994)
• The Last Coyote (1995)
• Trunk Music (1997)
• Angels Flight (1999)
• A Darkness More than Night (2001) *
• City of Bones (2002) /
• Lost Light (2003)
• The Narrows (2004) ***
• The Closers (2005)
• Echo Park (2006)
• The Overlook (2007)
• Nine Dragons (2009) ****

Mickey Haller:

• The Lincoln Lawyer (2005) /
• The Brass Verdict (2008) **
• The Reversal (2010) **
• The Fifth Witness (2011)
• The Gods of Guilt (October 2013)

Other:

• The Poet (1996) ***
• Blood Work (1998) *
• Void Moon (2000)
• Chasing the Dime (2002)
• The Scarecrow (2009)

* Terry McCaleb is in these novels
** Harry Bosch is in these novels
*** The Poet is in these novels.
****Mickey Haller is in this novel

Nonfiction:

• Crime Beat: A Decade of Covering Cops and Killers (2006)

Movies from Books:

• Blood Work (2002)
• The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)

“She was alive when she was put in the bath?”
“I think so. There are other ways to drain a person of her blood, but the easiest way is to have the heart do the pumping for you.”
“So he puts his victims in the bathtub and slits their wrists. Are they incapacitated in any way? Unconscious maybe?”
“No trace of drugs in the blood.”
“So maybe he hits them over the head and knocks them out. Who knows? But whoever lost that blood is definitely dead, right?”
“Angel, I can’t say so with any scientific certainty, and this isn’t my specialty, but if that was Susan McCarthy’s blood in the tub, my guess is she’s dead.”

Book Review:

Review by Chuck Barksdale (JUN 12, 2010)

New author Raffi Yessayan’s first book 8 in the Box is a solid legal thriller based in Boston, Massachusetts that is also a well done and enjoyable police procedural. With a mix of perspectives, Yessayan shows the thoughts of the homicide police detectives and the district attorneys as well as a serial killer that keeps the police busy looking for clues.

The book focuses on several young assistant district attorneys, with the lead being Conrad “Connie” Darget, somewhat more experienced than the other attorneys and one that is respected for his success by both his male and female co-workers. Connie also develops good relationships with the police and works to earn their trust when he visits crime scenes. This also helps him in assuring the cases he tries will be managed correctly in the field so he will be more successful in winning his cases.

Connie gets to work with two main homicide detectives, new detective Angel Alves and the more experienced Sergeant Detective Wayne Mooney. The two detectives certainly are challenged to solve what become a series of missing people whose blood is left behind in a bathtub of water. The “Blood Bath Killer” is careful to not leave any significant clues as the two detectives work tirelessly to solve the murder. Mooney’s continual press on the young Alves does lead to some stress in Alves’ family as the added hours often leave him unable to participate in family functions his wife Marcy plans. The story includes several twists along the way as the killer confuses the detectives with no clues and a mix of victims.

Although this book is mostly about finding the serial killer, Yessayan does spend a fair amount of time building the back story of the various characters, with an emphasis on the attorneys. This makes sense since Yessayan spent 11 years as a Boston assistant district attorney and he is obviously comfortable writing about these experiences even if fictional. Yessayan spends the most time on Connie Darget and his cases along with his relationship with law student Andi Norton. Andi spends too much time on the cases Connie gives her and this only leads to problems with her law classes. Other attorneys include Mitch Beaulieu, a sensitive African-American attorney who struggles with the many cases against African-Americans, and Nick Costa who is more interested in impressing women then in being prepared for his cases which he never seems to win.

Yessayan’s style in the book is to have many chapters (85 total) with each chapter in the perspective of one of several main characters. Since the book doesn’t really feature one main character, many different perspectives are presented; however, Yessayan does a very good job of making it clear from whose perspective that chapter is in and at no time did I feel confused. Although I wasn’t sure about this approach at the beginning, I think it worked and allowed to get into the minds of the key characters, including the killer Richter, thus allowing the reader to understand what was going on in the book. Of course, although you do learn more from being in the mind of the killer, Yessayan does not give the reader too much information too soon.

I’ve just started Raffi Yessayan’s second book, 2 in the Hat, a sequel to 8 in the Box. Many of the same characters are back and the same mix of perspectives with short chapters is in this book. I’m not sure I agree with the numbering approach of the book titles, especially since the numbers are not in order. I had to keep reminding myself to read the “8” book before the “2” book. I’d suggest Yessayan use a different approach if he continues the series since this will be nearly impossible to keep straight after a few books in the series.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 24 readers
PUBLISHER:	Ballantine Books (March 23, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Chuck Barksdale
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Raffi Yessayan
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: 2 in the Hat

Bibliography:

• 8 in the Box (June 2008)
• 2 in the Hat (April 2010)

“I wanted what I had wanted from the time the nightmare began: the life I had before. I did not have the strength, if the truth be told, to start again. Or to see my son, a fragile creature, become the final victim of the entire tragedy.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky (MAY 4, 2010)

Back in 1987, Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent created a sensation. It had all of the elements that fans of legal thrillers adore: murder, adultery, courtroom pyrotechnics, and a final twist that knocked everyone’s socks off.  In Innocent, the highly anticipated sequel, it is 2007.  Rusty Sabich is now sixty years old and has risen to become Chief Judge of the Third District Appellate Court in Kindle County. He is hoping to run for the State Supreme Court in the near future. Unfortunately, his personal life has been far less successful than his career.

Rusty’s wife of thirty-six years is a brilliant woman, but she is afflicted with a crippling case of bipolar disorder. She is prone to uncontrollable rages and devastating depression; medication cannot completely alleviate her symptoms. Rusty and Barbara have stayed together partly to protect their sensitive only child, Nat, twenty-eight, who is about to graduate from law school. When Rusty is tempted by a beautiful thirty-four year old woman who has set her sights on him, he must decide whether he should risk everything to embark on an affair that is bound to end badly.

Twenty-one years earlier, Tommy Molto had been a prosecutor during Sabich’s sensational trial, and the two have a history of mutual respect and antipathy. Each acknowledges the other’s courtroom skills, but neither one can forget how Rusty evaded conviction. Now Tommy, who is acting Prosecuting Attorney, tries Rusty for a new murder—that of Rusty’s wife, Barbara. Molto’s fiery deputy, Jim Brand, is fiercely loyal to his boss and something of a pit bill. He uses all of his powers of persuasion to convince Tommy that this time, they can nail Sabich and make him pay for at least one of his crimes. What follows is a clash of the titans, since Tommy is not the only powerhouse attorney eager to win this case. Rusty is fortunate to have on his side a top-notch defense lawyer, Sandy Stern who, as he did before, hopes to wield his magic wand and exonerate his high-profile client.

Turow keeps us off balance by going back and forth in time, changing points of view, and withholding key bits of information so that he can spring a few surprises in the final chapters. Innocent is an intense story of how people nurse deep-seated resentments that fester for years and do inestimable damage; of family members who are afraid to tell one another the truth; of infidelity and betrayal; and ultimately, of love and redemption. Turow’s courtroom scenes are mesmerizing, and he makes the complex proceedings accessible and fascinating, even for those who know little about criminal procedure.

One quibble is that Rusty’s behavior does not always ring true. He is supposedly an intelligent and self-disciplined individual who has learned something from his past misdeeds, but his actions in this novel are a bit too naïve, foolish, and self-destructive to be believed. In addition, there is a bit of contrivance in the way the author sews up the threads of his narrative so that everyone gets his or her just desserts.

Still, Turow knows how to grab our attention and hold it, and he maintains a high level of suspense throughout this fast-paced and intricate tale. The sharply written and sometimes earthy dialogue as well as Turow’s entertaining and often dryly humorous prose keep things moving along quickly. Innocent, as its predecessor did more than two decades ago, demonstrates how difficult it is to mete out perfect justice in an imperfect world where so many people lie to themselves and others.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 265 readers
PUBLISHER:	Grand Central Publishing; 1 edition (May 4, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Scott Turow
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Ordinary Heroes Reversible Errors Personal Injuries

Bibliography:

• Presumed Innocent (1987)
• The Burden of Proof (1990)
• Pleading Guilty (1993)
• The Laws of Our Fathers (1996)
• Personal Injuries (1999)
• Reversible Errors (2002)
• Ordinary Heroes (2005)
• Limitations (2006)
• Innocent (2010)
• Identical (October 2013)

Non-fiction:

• One L: The Turbolent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School (1977)
• Ultimate Punishment: A Lawyer’s Reflections on Dealing with the Death Penalty (2003)

As Editor:

• The Best American Mystery Stories (2006) (with Otto Penzler)

Movies from books:

• Presumed Innocent (1990)

“People have searched for these paintings for twenty years,” she said. “The police, the FBI, Interpol, private detectives, insurance detectives, art historians, treasure hunters. People have spent an enormous amount of energy trying to find these things, but no one has done it yet. There have been lots of theories about who was responsible. The most popular is that the IRA teamed up with the Boston mob to do the job, then split the take between the two groups.”

Book Review:

Review by Kirstin Merrihew (MAR 1, 2010)

Among Thieves opens its prologue with a man from Ireland named Liam about to finish off “a lump of flesh curled in front of him on the cement floor.” He had tortured “the lump” for information that he had not gotten. While looking down at the man, Murphy, Liam remembered how, when he was a child in Belfast, a vengeance killing left him the only survivor in his immediate family. This grisly event had put him on his current path of mayhem and murder.

Next, Boston attorney Scott Finn enters the Nashua Street Jail to visit Devon Malley, a guy he knew back in the day when he wasn’t such an upstanding citizen either. Devon is in the joint for what looks like a smash-and-grab at a very expensive clothing and lingerie store. But as Scott, his paralegal, Lissa Krantz, and his investigator, Tom Kozlowski, soon discover, defending Devon is no piece of cake. Not to mention this could well become a pro bono case that could end up costing much more than foregone greenbacks.

And then there is Devon’s fourteen-year-old daughter, Sally (yes, Sally Malley) who needs somewhere to stay while her old man’s in the slammer. Scott knows from personal experience what the foster care system is like and decides to let her stay in his spare room until her father’s bail hearing. Sally, who lived her early years with her druggie mother and had had to fend off some of the men her mom brought home, locks the guest room door just in case. She also puts up the expected teenage wall, and it is up to Scott, Lissa, and Tom to get her to come out from behind it.

Meanwhile, a team of Boston cops and an FBI agent work the case of cut-up-and-dead Murphy, a well-known member of the mob. Then they are called to another crime scene where four men have been shot to death and a fifth one’s body looks like a filleted fish. This second tortured lump is Eddie Ballick, an underworld boss, who would have preferred being a fisherman to a life of crime. Scott had gone to see Ballick about Devon the day before, hoping to get information that he might be able to trade to the prosecution on his client’s behalf about others involved in the store robbery. However, Ballick isn’t cooperative even though he and Scott knew each other way back. When Scott is asked by the police to come answer questions about Ballick’s murder, Scott stalls them. He first goes to the courthouse to try to get bail for Devon. He also tells Devon what happened to Ballick, and that totally changes Devon’s mind about wanting his freedom. He knows only too well he could be next on the vicious killer’s list.

Devon and Liam, as told in Among Thieves, were the two men who robbed the Gardner Museum back in March 1990, getting away with artwork now estimated at over half a billion dollars. And Liam is methodically working through the men most likely to know where the paintings are stashed. However, the Boston mobster at the top of that list is out of Liam’s reach because he’s been on the run for years. That man is Jimmy “Whitey” Bulger.

Bulger is a real person who has made appearances of sorts in various novels including Along Comes a Stranger, by Dorie McCullough Lawson. Whether he makes one in Among Thieves will remain for readers to discover. Whether he does or not, he is considered by this novel to have been one of the men behind the thefts at the Gardner Museum. As the introductory quote notes, the theory that U.S. organized crime partnered with the IRA to pull off this crime is a popular one, and Bulger headed the Boston crime world back then. Ulrich Boser’s The Gardner Heist, a 2008 examination of facts and theories about this unsolved armed robbery, mentions Bulger as a credible culprit, and the author became so engrossed in this possibility that he even traveled to Galway Bay, Ireland thinking he might track Bulger down there.

For Scott Finn and his associates, Liam — who clearly will stop at nothing get his hands on the paintings — is the primary problem, not Bulger. After Devon spills why he got himself arrested in the first place and why he doesn’t want to leave the jail, they realize defending him could also put their lives at grave risk. Without a means to getting at Devon directly, Liam might target one of them — or target Sally. And the prospect of dying like Murphy and Ballick strikes cold fear in the hearts of all the potential victims.

As the magnitude of their client’s criminal past dawns on them, Finn, Tom, and Lissa, in quite realistic and sometimes funny scenes, also become attached to Sally — and she, grudgingly, to them. I did too, which isn’t always the case when an author decides to make a rather unsocial teen into a major character. Anyway, by the time Sally might be sighted in Liam’s crosshairs, Hosp’s trio and readers like me actually want her to survive the novel and to perhaps turn fifteen in Scott Finn’s next adventure. Generally, these four characters are believable people for whom one gladly roots. The same can be said for the police partners, about whom Hosp provides some interesting back story.

David Hosp’s threesome of Finn, Krantz, and Kozlowski reminds me somewhat of Michael Connelly’s best-seller fictional defense attorney, Mikey Haller, and his own squad of associates. For example, Haller’s investigator, Dennis Wojchiechowski, and his assistant, Lorna Taylor, are an item, and this parallels the relationship of Tom and Lissa. While reading Among Thieves, I thought of Connelly’s The Brass Verdict a few times. Although their plots are not that similar, both Finn and Haller have to deal with less than forthcoming or cooperative clients and must mull over some serious legal ethics issues.

Finn and Haller also have in common that they each “star” in a book series. In Finn’s case, Dark Harbor and Innocence, have both been quite enthusiastically received by the public and critics.

Unlike Connelly, Hosp is an attorney. Whether this primary profession gives him a leg up or he simply has a knack for writing clear legal suspense, this novel is easily followed by readers without a legal background. Once though I thought Hosp had decided he was writing for fourth graders who hadn’t learned their fractions or percentages yet: “In her fifteen years on the detective squad, she’d cleared over seventy-five percent of her cases. That meant if a case was assigned to her, three out of four times someone was convicted of the crime.” And then, two sentences later, Hosp again turned math teacher. But that’s a minor quibble.

What really happened to the stolen Gardner art remains shrouded in mystery, but Among Thieves has done its homework regarding the facts that are available and the conjectures that have grown from those facts. The novel’s practically minute-by-minute scenario of how the heist might have gone down is entirely plausible. The trick for someone writing about this monumental, real unsolved art crime is devising a conclusion that supplies adequate resolution and yet doesn’t violate what the the real world knows to be true about the paintings. Hosp meets those requirements ingeniously. The climax of Hosp’s Among Thieves revs the drama and steps up the unpredictability.The tension mounts as Liam, Devon, Sally, our three musketeers, and the cops and feds all converge. Some of them won’t breathe much longer. All because a man who once knifed masterpieces from their frames desperately wants possession of them again.

Bookdom’s legal thriller genre isn’t a lonely place; Hosp’s series faces stiff competition. However, it can stand up to it and shoulder out pedestal space all its own.

Bibliography:

Scott Finn series

• Dark Harbor (June 2005)
• Innocence (July 2007)
• Among Thieves (January 2010)

Stand-alone:

• The Betrayed (July 2006)

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 60 readers
PUBLISHER:	Grand Central Publishing; 1 edition (January 11, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Kirstin Merrihew
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	David Hosp
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Dark Harbor The Betrayed And other Boston Mystery writers: Dennis Lehane William G. Tapply Richard Marinick John F. Dobbyn

“Disbarment had been a real possibility, so much so that my six-month suspension for admitted drug use actually came as a relief.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody (OCT 24, 2009)

In this debut novel, Justin Peacock offers the reader an intense courtroom thriller. From page one, I was hooked and stayed hooked until the very end. As with the best page-turners, you won’t want to put this novel down until you find out what happens.

Joel Deveraux is working at a top-notch, white collar law office in New York City when he decides that he wants to date his legal assistant, Beth. Not only is this potentially unethical, but Beth also has the air of something forbidden; she is an adventurer in life, perhaps on the dark side. Joel soon finds out that Beth is playing with fire, a powdered fire called heroin.  While Beth is really into this drug and has already let her professional life flounder, Joel joins her as a weekend partier. He fools himself into believing that because he uses only on the weekend, he’s really okay. One day, at work, Beth overdoses and dies. Joel is at the center of the investigation and loses his job. He is given the option of resigning before he is fired and he takes this option. He also finds himself at the losing end of a civil lawsuit filed by Beth’s father who mistakenly believes that he was the one who got Beth into drugs. Joel loses his license to practice law for six months and finds himself unable to land a job at any reputable law firm. Word travels fast on the grapevine, even in Manhattan. Joel finally secures work as a public defender in Brooklyn. Though he’s not there for the idealistic reasons that many public defenders share, he appreciates the work. He’s not using heroin any longer but he’s not in a good recovery program either.

Joel has been working as a public defender for about six months, primarily doing arraignments, when his boss offers him the chance to play second chair in a murder investigation. This is where things begin to pick up and get really interesting. The reader is privy to intricate courtroom dramas between the public defender’s office and the prosecution, between lawyers and clients and between victims and perpetrators. We are shown the ugly head of racism as it peaks out from every corner, especially in jury selection and in impulsive judgments about clients. The dialogue is very realistic and the lingua franca of the city projects appears to be genuinely portrayed.

Joel is paired up with a senior defender on his team, Myra Goldstein. She is a seasoned six year veteran of the public defender’s office – tough, assertive, self-assured. She doesn’t see the need to have a second chair but her boss is concerned that she won’t have enough time to give to this case. Myra is also working on an appeal for another client who she believes is innocent but has just been sentenced to life in jail. Joel likes to be in the courtroom, an experience he did not have at his posh law office. The murder case also interests him a lot. A jewish student from Brooklyn College has been murdered at the projects. A second man, a black drug dealer, has been shot in the back twice and is alive. The alleged perpetrator, Lorenzo Tate, has been identified by an eye witness but continues to assert his innocence. It is a case with a lot more than meets the eye at first look. Joel learns that it is often not the best case that wins, but the best story. But what is the real story of this case? That’s what this book is about.

The title of this book is interesting in itself and forms one of the backdrops for the story. Myra says to Joel that “the day tries to correct the night’s mistakes. Most of my cases, people have done something they never would’ve dreamed of doing in broad daylight.” Joel asks Myra if that makes them the night janitors. Myra says “We’re absolutely that … What else do we do but clean up after it? That’s why we’ll never run out of work. Not unless someone invents a cure for night.”

While the novel is riveting at times and always a page-turner, the ending is a bit of a let-down. Despite fitting together nicely, I expected more of a drama and revelation than I was given. It seemed a bit too pat and a bit too far-fetched at the same time. Despite my disappointment with the ending, I could not put the book down until I got there. It had me in its clutches like a pit bull and I lost quite a bit of sleep last night.

I think that Justin Peacock has a good career ahead of him as he polishes his style and continues in this vein. I haven’t read such a good courtroom drama since The Juror by George Dawes Green or The Thirteenth Juror by John Lescroart. Peacock has a wonderful way with dialogue that keeps the nail biting going strong. I wanted better physical descriptions of Joel and Myra from the author but I made them up for myself. Peacock knows the courtroom. He understands the confrontations and the ethical dilemmas. He understands addiction and the rationalizations that addicts make to themselves when they’re not in full recovery. He knows how to keep the reader turning pages. I look forward to his next book.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 58 readers
PUBLISHER:	Vintage (October 6, 2009)
REVIEWER:	Bonnie Brody
AMAZON PAGE:	A Cure for Night
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Justin Peacock’s blog Daily News article on Justin Peacock
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	More courtroom drama: Missing Witness by Gordon Campbell The Legal Limit by Martin Clark The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly The Last Goodbye by Reed Arvin

Bibliography:

• A Cure for Night (2008)
• Blind Man’s Alley (August 2010)