The undisputed dean of legal intrigue (The Laws of Our Fathers, 1996, etc.) burrows deep into the muck surrounding the attempt to turn a dirty lawyer into an informant against the judges he’s been bribing. Now that the feds have discovered the secret bank account he’s been using to pay off some of the Kindle County judges who’ve been ruling on his cases, Robbie Feaver is ready to roll over on Their Honors. He’ll wear a wire to his meetings with their bagmen, hoping to get enough evidence to persuade at least four judges—party hack Barnett Skolnick, alcoholic Gillian Sullivan, scholarly Silvio Malatesta, and aggressive black ex-athlete Sherm Crowthers—to testify against the big fish the Feebs are really after: Brendan Tuohey, Presiding Judge of the county superior court’s common law claims division and uncle of Robbie’s benighted partner, Mort Dinnerstein. And while he’s waiting for the chance to get the goods on his former co-conspirators, Robbie will accept the constant companionship of FBI agent Evon Miller, disguised as one of the paralegals he can’t stop chasing even as his beloved wife Rainey is descending into the excruciating final stages of Lou Gehrig’s disease. It all sounds simple, and in the hands of a lesser storyteller the pivots of suspense would be utterly predictable: Will Robbie get found out? Will the bugging equipment actually work? Will the little fish he lands agree to turn on the big fish? All these problems come up here, all right, but, as usual, Turow is less interested in creating dangers for his hero than in exploring the ethical dilemmas of ambiguous legal situations—in particular, the morality of undercover work, whether the undercover ops are FBI agents or bogus lawyers the government can’t make parties to defrauding innocent clients, and whether it involves lying about your political debts, your sexual preferences, or your personal loyalties. The result is a revelation—a subtle, densely textured legal thriller stuffed with every kind of surprise except the ones you expect. Turow is well on his way to making Kindle County the Yoknapatawpha of American law.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-374-28194-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1999
Suspenseful, glamorous story of love, blackmail, and magic, set in New Orleans and Washington, D.C., about a family of high-class magicians practicing the time-honored profession of thievery. When magician Maxmillian Nouvelle adopts the 12-year-old runaway Luke Callahan, he gives him more than a family: He teaches him the secrets of blending what's real and what's not...giving people what they want—and also taking what they value. For the Great Nouvelle is a master jewel-thief; stealing from the undeserving rich warms his blood like the anticipation of good sex, a passion that both Luke and Max's bratty daughter Raxanne eventually share. Thirteen years pass: As Luke practices the fine arts of larceny and escapology, Roxanne grows into a flame-haired witch who turns bell, book, and candle into smoke onstage. Offstage, she trades in her David Cassidy poster for Luke; together, they set off sparks that could make an innocent bystander..go up in flames. But Luke's invincibility, like the Great Houdini's, is deceptive: Slimy Sam Wyatt—a former grifter now running for the Senate—slithers in from Luke's past, his frigid heart full of contempt for the family he once tried to seam. He threatens to frame Luke for murder and expose the Nouvelles' after-hours show unless he disappears. Five years later, a homesick Luke reappears, determined to show the disillusioned Roxanne that he's more than smoke and mirrors. Together, they set out to plot vengeance, staking everything on their most daring sting to date. True to the magician's oath, Roberts reveals no secrets, but the illusion works—in a compelling and detail-rich first hardcover. Good escape reading.
Pub Date: July 17, 1992
ISBN: 0-399-13761-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1992
Hoag finishes her crossover from sexy soft-cover romance to psychosexual thriller with this tale of tough Cajun loners looking for love in unlikely places. Heroine Annie Broussard is a deputy with the sheriff's office in Partout Parish in southern Louisiana. An orphan who's working hard to make detective, she's also devoted to getting rid of the sexual predators who victimize women. But just as her career seems to be looking up, Annie breaks an unwritten police law: She arrests a fellow officer, Nick Fourcade, when she finds him beating up a murder suspect. Annie should have let Fourcade kill him, say both her colleagues and the bayou parish citizens. After all, the suspect, Marcus Renard, had supposedly stalked Pam Bichon, a single mother. He'd driven stakes through her hands, raped her, killed her, eviscerated her, then left her wearing only a feathered Mardi Gras mask in a deserted cottage on Pony Bayou. Why not kill him? Switching his obsession from Pam to Annie, he maintains that he's innocent and begs Annie to help him. Working with Fourcade, who's suspended but still obsessed with the case, she seeks evidence to put the troubled Marcus legally behind bars. Meanwhile, someone's raping Louisiana women, and Marcus is too injured to be the perp. Is it Annie's lazy, mean-spirited colleague Stokes? Or Pam's husband, involved with a New Orleans racketeer from Fourcade's past? As Mardi Gras approaches, Annie, a cute kid who does 50 chin-ups a day and has an addiction to candy bars, wrestles with Fourcade's dangerous sexuality—fortunately a losing battle—and with the evil presence of deranged male predators that haunts so many recent suspense novels. Hoag (Guilty as Sin, 1996, etc.) is always a good gritty read, but this time a lack of sustained emotional tension makes the novel a long ride on soft tires.
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-553-09960-4
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1997
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