A chilling view of the vagaries of the justice system, with a final surprise.
A debut historical novel re-creates a sensational 1964 murder trial in Lorain, Ohio, in which the author’s father was co-counsel for the defense.
Casper Bennett has been arrested for the murder of his wife, Florence, whose lifeless body he found in a bathtub of scalding water. After unsuccessfully trying to reach Ray Miraldi, who had been his lawyer for several civil matters, he hires well-known criminal attorney Lon Adams. But Adams seems to be dropping the ball, overburdened with another case. Casper’s brother, Chester, implores Ray to team up with Adams. Ray, formerly a successful city prosecutor, had resigned his position to focus full time on his private legal practice, choosing to concentrate on civil cases. The responsibility of a potential guilty verdict in a criminal case, and the consequential loss of his client’s freedom, weighs heavily on him. But, in this instance, he believes in Casper’s innocence—that Florence’s death was accidental, the result of a drunken fall —and the two attorneys agree to work together. Miraldi’s narrative is a detailed reconstruction of the investigation and the trial, with considerable attention paid to the personal backgrounds of many of the participants. Although the author is working from historical records, including his father’s files, the transcripts of the court case no longer exist. And so Miraldi, an attorney himself, imagines much of the trial. But because all of the characters (specific police officers, the district attorney and his assistant, the judge, etc.) are real, and the author includes photographs and copies of certain documents, the final product seems reportorial, more docudrama than novel. Nonetheless, this is an engrossing tale, and Miraldi carefully lays out the frailties of the criminal justice system—from dubious police procedures to prosecutorial personal agendas. He deftly describes the questioning of one witness who saw Casper the night in question: “She couldn’t say for sure, but the persistent police detectives had finally convinced her that it was very close to nine p.m. After that, they finally left her alone.”
A chilling view of the vagaries of the justice system, with a final surprise.Pub Date: June 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9989189-0-7
Page Count: 404
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
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
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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