A spirited, often comical courtroom tale brimming with genuine characters.
In this dramedy, a legal secretary tackles a friend’s personal injury case, which requires posing as a lawyer—her dead boss.
Gertie Chase and Dorothy “Dot” Swayne have been working for Louise Barbour for nearly two decades when the Texas attorney suddenly dies at her desk. Louise’s indolent son, Clarence, who wants the building to open a vape shop, demands the private practice’s files be farmed out to other lawyers. But one file catches Gertie’s eye: a personal injury case involving her longtime friend Nelda Fay Blatchford. Nelda’s husband, Clifford, had developed cancer, which a doctor determined was from exposure to asbestos at work. As Louise apparently neglected the matter and Clifford has since died, Gertie decides to see the case through, with help from Dot and their co-worker/friend Guadalupe “Lupe” Maria Sylvia-Sotomayor. Gertie will just have to take on the role of Louise, but only until she can reach a settlement. When Clifford’s ex-boss Waite Morrison doesn’t show up to the mediation and his attorney, Alexander Shiras, makes a lowball offer, Gertie and Nelda opt for a trial. Having picked up skills by assisting Louise, Gertie can hold her own in the ensuing courtroom battle, provided no one learns her true identity. Clary (Unfinished Business, 2016, etc.) tactfully deals with serious subjects. Gertie worries about her husband, Jack, who experiences frequent pain from Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam, and Nelda, who’s Creole, is no stranger to racism (likely the reason Louise abandoned her case). But there’s also humor in abundance. An example—and the book’s highlight—is when Gertie, whose car is blocking Shiras’ at the mediation, feigns a prolonged search for her keys. The author’s flair for rapid-fire dialogue leads to bustling courtroom scenes, which monopolize the novel’s latter half. These scenes furthermore distinguish the amiable heroine (small-town Gertie easily connects with prospective jurors) from antagonistic Shiras, who constantly objects and interrupts witnesses he’s questioning on the stand.
A spirited, often comical courtroom tale brimming with genuine characters.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5320-5382-5
Page Count: 285
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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