A masterful mix of legal arcana and white-knuckle suspense, with a dollop of dirty pork-barrel politicking for good measure.
Two brothers and a murder are at the heart of this fine, meaty legal thriller from circuit-court judge Clark (Plain Heathen Mischief, 2004, etc.).
The author’s latest, based on one of his own cases, is set in his small hometown: Stuart, Va. It begins in 1984. Gates Hunt is 27 and his kid brother Mason is 24. Their father Curt, mean as they come, used to wallop them mercilessly; he made life hell for his long-suffering wife Sadie Grace, too, before finally disappearing. Gates had protected Mason, hence the “visceral, epic connection” between the brothers. That explains why the decent, hardworking Mason covers for the shiftless Gates when he shoots another man dead. The victim had been fooling around with Gates’s girlfriend, and there was a late-night confrontation on a deserted country road, Mason the only witness. He gets rid of the gun and the case goes cold. Years pass. The no-good Gates is busted for selling drugs to an undercover state cop and draws a long prison term. Mason becomes a successful lawyer in Richmond and marries; he and wife Allison are a devoted couple. He returns to Stuart as an attorney; then Allison is killed in a car crash, leaving Mason to raise their daughter alone. It’s not until 2003 that the murder case is reopened. Gates, desperate and hoping for a pardon, accuses Mason of the crime; a special prosecutor is appointed, and Mason is indicted. Clark ratchets up the drama with two electrifying scenes: Sadie Grace smiting and disowning her son, and the brothers, by now the bitterest of enemies, slugging each other. Clark’s key point is the potential gap between the law and true justice, into which a good person can fall. Ultimately, everything pivots on an obscure Latin writ.
A masterful mix of legal arcana and white-knuckle suspense, with a dollop of dirty pork-barrel politicking for good measure.Pub Date: July 11, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-307-26835-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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