Consistently riveting—whether the protagonist contends with baddies or hones his skills in the courtroom.
A public defender’s first case concerns a fairly routine burglary until the prosecutor adds murder charges in this legal thriller.
Noah Shane nearly loses his new job as assistant public defender before it’s even begun. The flu-ridden lawyer misses his first two days, then braves the nausea to make it to the Public Defender’s office in Alameda County, California. His initial assignment is interviewing 23-year-old Pablo Ruiz, who’s in jail for allegedly swiping 300 pounds of butter from a dairy truck. The circumstances are unusual, but it’s a case Noah believes he can handle, especially if a plea bargain is on the table. But Noah is suddenly facing the district attorney’s chief trial deputy, Marco Salem, who amends the charges against Pablo to include murder in the first degree. The case now involves the bullet-riddled body of noted stockbroker Warren Van Zandt. Despite overwhelming evidence against Pablo, such as his fingerprints in Van Zandt’s condo, he denies even knowing the broker. Noah feels a more experienced lawyer should take the reins of a murder case, but his boss, Jim Stark, dismisses that suggestion. In fact, Stark demands that Noah take the prosecutor’s eventual plea offer. But Noah is determined to see things through even when he suspects his client isn’t telling him everything. Working closely with legal investigator Buzz Hoogasian, Noah starts unraveling the murder mystery. But certain individuals who want the case to go away resort to despicable tactics, from intimidation and threats to something decidedly more lethal. Weinberg’s (A Grateful Nation, 2015) story, a prequel to his earlier novel featuring the public defender, is an all-round solid thriller. Well-established villains, for one, are an unquestionable menace, trying to force Noah into submission by targeting his friends. At the same time, Van Zandt’s killer is not immediately known, leading to unnerving instances of Noah’s pondering the notion that Pablo is indeed guilty. The protagonist is admirable but grounded—a diligent lawyer prone to making mistakes. These flubs actually earn him sympathy: He’s the new guy at work and, with no one to guide him, learning as he goes along. Weinberg perfectly captures Noah’s first days on the job: He wisely gets help from whomever he can, including Stark’s accommodating assistant, Bobbi Matthews, and constantly worries about proper court procedure. But the tale’s pre-eminent scenes involve Noah’s jailhouse visits; just getting to Pablo is a process rife with meticulous steps and reminiscent of the slow but assiduous murder trial. They moreover showcase the story’s effectively prolonged moments: Pablo “reached into the left breast pocket of his jumpsuit and removed a worn, creased paper. He unfolded carefully, probably for the hundredth time, and flattened it on the table.” Supporting characters shine, particularly Buzz and Kate Waverly, Noah’s law school friend. A recovering alcoholic, Buzz has one-sided conversations with the rubber duck hanging from his car’s rearview mirror. Meanwhile, Noah’s relationship with potential lover Kate is complicated by Stark. He takes a shine to her but not so much to Noah.
Consistently riveting—whether the protagonist contends with baddies or hones his skills in the courtroom.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-944377-11-3
Page Count: 426
Publisher: Curtis Brown Unlimited
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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