Take heart, California scofflaws, from this wily treatise on the art of beating traffic tickets.
The authors run TicketBust.com, an online consultancy that specializes in “Trial by Written Declaration,” a Californian court proceeding under which drivers plead with a judge by mail to dismiss or reduce their tickets. Having handled 30,000 such cases, they are bursting with tips on getting out of tickets for speeding, running reds, illegal lane changes and other moving violations. Tickets can be challenged, they note, by impeaching the policeman’s line of sight, alleging that the radar gun mistook the defendant for some other car or documenting obscured signage. Tickets from red-light cameras fall prey to countless technicalities; they are invalid if sufficient warning of the camera’s presence was not posted, if no evidence is presented that it was functioning properly or if the ticket was not mailed within 15 days. And there’s always good old lawyerly sophistry—yes, the cop saw you using your cell phone in the car, but how could he know whether you were texting someone (illegal) or just browsing the web (100 percent possibly legal, according to plausible readings of the relevant statute)? The authors’ main recommendation, though, is to pay them to write and process your Written Declaration. (They reprint samples of their work, bristling with ferocious legalese: “[I]f the People wish to convict me of violating a signal, it is their duty pursuant to VC§ 21455.5 (c)(2)(C) to first establish that the signal was installed and operating according to the law.”) Organizationally, the book is an 18-car pile-up; Miller and Vega simply downloaded the contents of their website and blog in no discernible order, with some passages repeated several times. Still, it’s a lucid browse that makes up for its promotional slant and jumbled structure with lots of detailed, useful advice on navigating the legal system, presented in straightforward laymen’s terms. An informative, readable primer on the rules—and ruses—of the road.
Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-615551821
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Steven F. Miller
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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