THE CAUSE OF ACTION

A lawyer finds himself entangled in a racially and religiously charged case in the third installment of Napoleon’s Devlin series.

In the 1990s, Connor J. Devlin doesn’t have much free time. He marries his longtime girlfriend, and they have a couple of babies before the millennium is over. Devlin reluctantly agrees to work as a technical advisor for defense attorney Trent Hoffman. A hit-and-run case has already stirred up the public: Cops have arrested Bishop Patrick Ryan, who allegedly ran down Ray Lee Dean, a Navajo man on his way home from work. Ryan is infamous for knowingly covering up a church-related sexual abuse scandal, which became national news just months earlier (“Everyone in metropolitan Phoenix, from militant atheists to blood-of-Jesus devotees, and every shade and stripe of belief in between, knew the bishop’s name”). Certain pieces of evidence in the hit-and-run case favor the defense, like the fact that Dean was reputedly drunk. Hoffman later asks Devlin to try the case with him, assuring him that it will end in a plea deal and not in a courtroom—going to trial would mean having to convince a jury that Ryan had no idea he actually hit a person. As in previous series installments, Napoleon here delivers a realistic depiction of what a lawyer does. While Ryan’s story takes precedence, the novel also highlights Devlin & Associates’ additional workload, including a wrongful death case involving a helicopter crash. The narrative sets an impressive pace as Devlin’s days grow “jam-packed” and his family life, not surprisingly, suffers. The author builds a moody environment that reflects the era—there is mass fear of the impending effects of the Y2K bug as well as protests over the judicial system giving special treatment to privileged groups. Readers may want to peruse the series’ earlier entries, as one subplot that unmistakably shakes Devlin stems from one of those. This sequel ends with an intense but baffling epilogue that seemingly teases another installment.

A convincing and exciting portrayal of high-stakes litigation.