Review: THE PENGUIN POOL MURDER, Stuart Palmer - audio book

• available from Audible.com
• #1 in the Hildegarde Withers series
• first published 1931
• Narrated by: Julie McKay
• Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins 
• Series: Hildegarde Withers, Book 1
• Unabridged Audiobook

Synopsis  (Audible.com)

Although the Stock Market had crashed recently, it was too early for most people to predict that the Great Depression was about to get underway.

For 39-year-old spinster schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers, it’s business as usual. And part of her usual business is taking her class for an outing to the aquarium to see the penguins. Instead, she spots the floating corpse of Wall Street broker Gerald Lester and quickly realizes that Inspector Oscar Piper of NYPD Homicide isn’t up to solving this tricky case, especially when he appears ready to accept he confession of an obviously innocent young man. Red herrings, not penguins, abound.

Miss Withers has a number of questions that need answers before she’s willing to reel in the real murderer: Who did Lester’s wife meet behind the stairs? What did the pickpocket see? Who was the man in the fedora? And just how did Miss Withers’ hatpin turn into a lethal weapon?

First published in 1931, The Penguin Pool Murder was as big a hit with book lovers as it was with moviegoers when it was filmed the following year starring Edna May Oliver as Miss Withers and James Gleason as Inspector Piper.

My take:

Great pains have been taken in the production of this audio book through accents and the like to emphasise both the New York setting of this story and the period in which it is set, just after the Wall street crash.

I found the premise of an NYPD detective in investigative partnership with a spinster school teacher rather unlikely but the plot is an intriguing one, and despite the early arrest of the victim's wife's lover, there are a number of possible candidates, all of whom are explored as the plot unfolds. The truth, when it "outed", came as a surprise, because I had not considered that particular possibility, indeed did not think that particular person had any motive. But perhaps I should have asked myself why he was at the Aquarium that particular morning.

You will have noted that this is #1 in the Hildegarde Withers series. Will I read another? I'm not sure. In some ways this novel was a bit dated, but then again a number of titles in the series have recently been released in audio format, so I might.

It will be one of the last Golden Age titles I will read this year for the Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge.

My rating: 4.2


About the author
Stuart Palmer (1905-1968) was a popular American mystery novel author and screenwriter, best known for his character Hildegarde Withers. He also wrote under the names Theodore Orchards and Jay Stewart.

Review: THE GOLDEN EGG, Donna Leon

• published 2013 Atlantic Monthly Press
  
• ISBN 978-0-8021-2101-1
• 276 pages
• #22  in the Brunetti series

Synopsis (Amazon)

In The Golden Egg, as the first leaves of autumn begin to fall, Vice Questore Patta asks Brunetti to look into a minor shop-keeping violation committed by the mayor’s future daughter-in-law. Brunetti has no interest in helping his boss amass political favors, but he has little choice but to comply. Then Brunetti’s wife, Paola, comes to him with a request of her own. The mentally handicapped man who worked at their dry cleaner has just died of a sleeping pill overdose, and Paola loathes the idea that he lived and died without anyone noticing him, or helping him.

Brunetti begins to investigate the death and is surprised when he finds nothing on the man: no birth certificate, no passport, no driver’s license, no credit cards. As far as the Italian government is concerned, he never existed. Stranger still, the dead man’s mother refuses to speak to the police, and assures Brunetti that her son’s identification papers were stolen in a burglary. As secrets unravel, Brunetti suspects that the Lembos, an aristocratic family, might be somehow connected to the death. But why would anyone want this sweet, simple-minded man dead?

My Take

I've followed the novels of Donna Leon closely over the last two decades, but I don't think any of them have ever left me with such a feeling of sadness that THE GOLDEN EGG has.

Set in Venice, the novels have come to explore the issues of living in modern day Venice against the background of a crime, often a murder. Some of those issues get passing mention in this novel such as corruption amongst city officials and the effects of cheap imports on the Venetian economy.

At the beginning of this novel we are not sure whether a murder has taken place.What concerns Brunetti is that there are no state records of this man despite his estimated age of over forty years. He is identified by a name on a piece of paper in his pocket, in conjunction with the record of where the ambulance was called to collect his body.

You'll have to ask yourself at the end of reading this novel whether a crime has been committed. What has happened certainly leaves Brunetti feeling that there should be some way of wreaking retribution.

My rating: 4.5

I've also reviewed
ABOUT FACE
THE GIRL OF HIS DREAMS
THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
4.4, A QUESTION OF BELIEF
4.5, BEASTLY THINGS
4.4, QUIETLY IN THEIR SLEEP
3.9, THE JEWELS OF PARADISE
4.8, DRAWING CONCLUSIONS
4.6, DEATH IN A STRANGE COUNTRY
4.7, BY ITS COVER

Guido Brunetti (according to Fantastic Fiction)
1. Death At La Fenice (1992)
2. Death in a Strange Country (1993)
3. The Anonymous Venetian (1994)
     aka Dressed for Death
4. A Venetian Reckoning (1995)
     aka Death And Judgment
5. Acqua Alta (1996)
     aka Death in High Water
6. The Death of Faith (1997)
     aka Quietly in Their Sleep
7. A Noble Radiance (1997)
8. Fatal Remedies (1998)
9. Friends in High Places (1999)
10. A Sea of Troubles (2001)
11. Wilful Behaviour (2002)
12. Uniform Justice (2003)
13. Doctored Evidence (2004)
14. Blood from a Stone (2005)
15. Through a Glass Darkly (2006)
16. Suffer the Little Children (2007)
17. The Girl of His Dreams (2008)
18. About Face (2009)
19. A Question of Belief (2010)
20. Drawing Conclusions (2011)
21. Beastly Things (2012)
22. The Golden Egg (2013)
23. By Its Cover (2014)
24. Falling in Love (2015)
25. The Waters of Eternal Youth (2016)

Review: MURDER IN THE FAMILY, Paula Bernstein

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
  
• File Size: 567 KB
• Print Length: 190 pages
• Publisher: M&Z Press (September 11, 2014)
• Publication Date: September 11, 2014
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00NIYXXR2

Synopsis (Amazon)

Hannah Kline is a successful Los Angeles obstetrician and the recently widowed mother of a young daughter. She is barely managing to hold it all together, when her life is shattered once again by the brutal murder of her beautiful, bright, zany and recently divorced sister-in-law Beth. Detective Daniel Ross of the LAPD thinks the killer had a very personal motive.

Hannah is determined to do whatever she can to assist the police in finding the murderer. She finds herself obsessed with the details of Beth's life, and as she encounters her sister-in-law's eclectic collection of friends and former lovers, she discovers that all was not as it seemed. Not only was Beth a woman with a secret life, but her secrets may have led her inexorably to a rendezvous with her killer.

My Take

The Introduction to this novel makes interesting reading: it gives the background to the story, and tells why the novel is the third published, although in fact it is the first in the series.

The author has done what many others have done: created a fictional sleuthing duo from complementary occupations, but this particular story was based on a true story, the brutal murder of a beloved friend and cousin. The first version of story as a psychological novel remained unpublished, and then came a short story written from another point of view, until the novel in its present form was accepted for publication.

Remembering all that as I read gave me a stronger appreciation of where this novel had its roots, and I think I enjoyed it all the more. I will certainly try to read the next in the series LETHAL INJECTION. I found Hannah Kline and Daniel Ross likeable characters that I would certainly like to see in action together again.

Reading MURDER IN THE FAMILY was prompted by the author offering me a review copy of the fourth in the series THE GOLDILOCKS PLANET.

My rating: 4.3

About the author
Paula Bernstein is an author who likes to think of herself as a multi-faceted career woman. She began her professional career as an academic chemist with a doctorate from Caltech. After realizing that she liked people far more than laboratory equipment, she went to Medical School and spent her professional life as a successful practicing obstetrician gynecologist.
Between deliveries, she has always indulged her creative side by taking courses in writing, interior design, graphic arts and astronomy. Over the years she's also published non-fiction, patient oriented medical books and professional papers, and written fiction for pleasure. Now that she is semi-retired she is busy editing and publishing her short stories and novels. Not surprisingly, her heroines are witty women in interesting professions from medicine, to physics to interior design. She is the author of Potpourri,an eclectic collection of short stories spanning several genres, and of Murder in the Family, Lethal Injection and Private School, the first three books in the Hannah Kline mystery series. Her latest Hannah Kline mystery is The Goldilocks Planet.

Review: THE SINS OF THE FATHERS, Lawrence Block

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
  
• Series: Matthew Scudder (Book 1)
• Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Avon (April 30, 2002)
  first published 1976
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038076363X
• ISBN-13: 978-0380763634

Synopsis (Amazon)

The pretty young prostitute is dead. Her alleged murderer—a minister's son—hanged himself in his jail cell. The case is closed. But the dead girl's father has come to Matthew Scudder for answers, sending the unlicensed private investigator in search of terrible truths about a life that was lived and lost in a sordid world of perversion and pleasures.

My Take

It is amazing that I have read as much crime fiction as I have, and never before read a Lawrence Block novel.

In this the debut title, Matt Scudder has recently left the New York Police force, after a decision that he made led to the death of a young girl. He decided that he was no longer able to hold his head up. Scudder is not a licensed PI and does his work for "gifts", and calls in favours from former colleagues and friends. He shows a willingness to go beyond what those employing him might have expected him to do, and in the long run is not afraid to be candid about what he has found out. One of the striking features of this novel is the way the author handles dialogue. The novel sets us up also with lots of background detail on Matthew Scudder.

As The Publisher's Weekly review says, this debut title demonstrates that Block was an excellent writer right from the start.  

My rating: 4.6

About the author
A Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, Lawrence Block is a four-time winner of the Edgar Allan Poe and Shamus Awards, as well as a recipient of prizes in France, Germany, and Japan. The author of more than fifty books and numerous short stories, he is a devout New Yorker who spends much of his time traveling. Website: http://lawrenceblock.com/

Review: A IS FOR ALIBI, Sue Grafton

• #1 in the Kinsey Millhone series
• first published in 1982 in the USA, perhaps not until 1987 in UK (in paperback??)
• this edition published for Kindle
• File Size: 633 KB
• Print Length: 368 pages
• Publisher: Macmillan; New Edit/Cover edition (April 1, 1991)
• Publication Date: April 1, 1991
• Sold by: Macmillan
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005G14VK8

Synopsis (Amazon)

"My name is Kinsey Millhone. I'm a private investigator, licensed by the state of California. I'm thirty-two years old, twice divorced, no kids. The day before yesterday I killed someone and the fact weighs heavily on my mind..."

When Laurence Fife was murdered, few cared. A slick divorce attorney with a reputation for ruthlessness, Fife was also rumoured to be a slippery ladies' man. Plenty of people in the picturesque Southern California town of Santa Teresa had reason to want him dead. Including, thought the cops, his young and beautiful wife, Nikki. With motive, access and opportunity, Nikki was their number one suspect. The Jury thought so too. Eight years later and out on parole, Nikki Fife hires Kinsey Millhone to find out who really killed her husband. But the trail has gone cold and there is a chilling twist even Kinsey didn't expect...

My Take

I chose to read this book for the Crime Fiction of the Year Challenge over at Past Offences, thinking it had first been published in 1987. I now know that it was published in the USA in 1982.

It is a significant book because it was the first in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet Series", with Kinsey Millhone as the central figure, and it sets the stage for Kinsey's sleuthing career.
Kinsey was born in 1950, but she really hasn't aged like the rest of us (I think she has reached a point where she doesn't age any more) . And around her Sue Grafton has built a "family" of characters, adding human elements to crime fiction scenarios that often reflect events in American society or politics.
It is also an important book because it set the benchmark for a number of series by other authors that featured female PIs.

Interestingly it is the first in the series that I appear to have read since beginning this blog. I appear to have 4 to catch up on: U, V, W, and X.
I did write about A IS FOR ALIBI as a "forgotten book" nearly 6 years ago. My post is here.

Sue Grafton has now written 24 in the series with X to be published later this year.
1. A is for Alibi (1982)
2. B Is for Burglar (1985)
3. C Is for Corpse (1985)
4. D Is for Deadbeat (1987)
5. E Is for Evidence (1988)
6. F Is for Fugitive (1989)
7. G Is for Gumshoe (1989)
8. H Is for Homicide (1991)
9. I Is for Innocent (1992)
10. J Is for Judgement (1993)
11. K Is for Killer (1994)
12. L Is for Lawless (1995)
13. M Is for Malice (1996)
14. N Is for Noose (1998)
15. O Is for Outlaw (1999)
16. P Is for Peril (2001)
17. Q Is For Quarry (2002)
18. R Is for Ricochet (2004)
19. S Is for Silence (2005)
20. T Is for Trespass (2007)
21. U Is for Undertow (2009)
22. V Is For Vengeance (2011)
23. W is for Wasted (2013)
24. X (2015)

My rating: 4.5 

Review: THE LAUGHING MONSTERS, Denis Johnson

• review copy provided by Random House UK, through NetGalley
• ISBN 9781473520363
• published in 2014.

Synopsis (NetGalley)

In Sierra Leone, suspicion has become the law. A contemporary spy thriller from the great American writer Denis Johnson, author of Train Dreams and Tree of Smoke
"In this land of chaos and despair, all I can do is wish for magic armour and the power to disappear."

Freetown, Sierra Leone. A city of heat and dirt, of guns and militia. Alone in its crowded streets, Captain Roland Nair has been given a single assignment. He must find Michael Adriko - maverick, warrior, and the man who has saved Nair's life three times and risked it many more.

The two men have schemed, fought and profited together in the most hostile regions of the world. But on this new level - espionage, state secrets, treason - their loyalties will be tested to the limit.

This is a brutal journey through a land abandoned by the future - a journey that will lead them to meet themselves not in a new light, but in a new darkness.

My Take

Perhaps this book was just too far out of my comfort zone, but I have to admit that I didn't finish it. According to my Kindle I got to 90%, but that's when I decided I couldn't go any further. I no longer knew what was going on. In fact, it was worse than that. I no longer cared.

I know others who would not bother to write about a DNF, but for a while there, I thought it had some good things going for it. I thought I knew what the central characters were trying to do, although I must admit to some confusing moments. I thought the description of the squalid state of things in Sierra Leone and the Congo rang true, but then I simply didn't recognise the protagonists as the book drew to the end.

I'm sorry.

My rating: 2.0

USA Fiction Challenge continues in 2015

State by State - an ongoing challenge

Ever thought you would like to read your way across America?
The USA Fiction Challenge asks you to do just that.
Read just one novel from each state - you choose whether the link is the setting or the author.
You choose whether you confine yourself to a particular genre or not.

This was a challenge that I initiated last year and it is ongoing, you can do for as long as you like.

It has it's own site USA Fiction Challenge where you can sign up and then record what you've read.

I have my own record page here: I've covered 20 states so far.


create your own personalized map of the USA

I'm recording multiple books for each state, and all my books are crime fiction, but really you can schoose any genre,
This year I've read

1.  4.3, MASTERMIND, Helen Goltz - Washington DC
2.  4.5, MURDER ONE, Robert Dugoni - Seattle, Washington
3. 3.8, THAT AFFAIR NEXT DOOR, Anna Katherine Green - New York 
4. 4.7, THE DARK ROAD TO MERCY, Wiley Cash- North Carolina
5. 4.4, ANGLE OF INVESTIGATION, Michael Connelly - California 
6. 4.7, BY ITS COVER, Donna Leon - author birth place 
7. 4.5, THE KIZUNA COAST, Sujata Massey -author residence 
8. 3.8, ROSEMARY'S BABY, Ira Levin - New York 
9. 3.6, DEAD RECKONING, Michael B. Smart - New York - author birthplace 
10. 4.6, PAYING THE PIPER, Simon Wood - California (setting)

Review: PAYING THE PIPER, Simon Wood

• Format: Kindle (Amazon)
  
• File Size: 1007 KB
• Print Length: 362 pages
• Publisher: Thomas & Mercer (November 13, 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B007GFGST4

Synopsis (Amazon)

For years, the serial kidnapper known as the Piper got rich by abducting children from San Francisco’s wealthiest families.

When crime reporter Scott Fleetwood gets a call from a man identifying himself as the Piper and offers an exclusive interview, Fleetwood jumps at the chance. But the caller turns out to be a fake, and the rash decision costs the life of the real Piper’s latest victim.

For eight long years, Fleetwood has lived with unbearable guilt—and the enduring disdain of the entire Bay area. Now he hears from the real Piper—and it’s not for an interview. The kidnapper has the reporter’s son. But he doesn’t want money…he wants blood. And he’s going to use Fleetwood to get it.

In the tradition of Harlan Coben and Gregg Hurwitz, Simon Wood weaves a plot thick with suspense and heavy with action. Paying the Piper grabs hold from page one and doesn’t let go until new debts are paid and old scores settled.

My take

This is a gripping read, lots of hold-your-breath moments.

Scott Fleetwood has lived with the guilt of the Piper's last abduction eight years before. He had thought like a journalist rather than a human being and hesitation cost a child's life. The note on the victim's chest - "You are to blame" - said it all, but now, eight years on, the Piper brings it all much closer to home when he takes one of Scott's twin sons.

This story really is a roller coaster ride and there are some elements further down the track that will really take you by surprise.

My rating: 4.6

I've also reviewed: 4.3, ACCIDENTS WAITING TO HAPPEN

Review: ANGLE OF INVESTIGATION: Three Harry Bosch Stories, Michael Connelly

• Format: Kindle (Amazon)
  
• File Size: 415 KB
• Print Length: 98 pages
• Publisher: Allen & Unwin (October 11, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005SDPHM0

Synopsis (Amazon)

LAPD Detective Harry Bosch tackles three tough cases that span a legendary career in this never-before-collected trio of stories.

In CHRISTMAS EVEN, the case of a burglar killed in mid-heist leads Bosch to retrace a link to his past. In FATHER'S DAY, Bosch investigates a young boy's seemingly accidental death and confronts his own fears as a father. In ANGLE OF INVESTIGATION, Bosch delves into one of the first homicides he ever worked back as a uniformed rookie patrolman, a case that was left unsolved for decades. Together, these gripping stories span Bosch's controversial career at the LAPD, and show the evolution of the haunted, legendary investigator he would become.

My Take

From the reviews on Amazon, it seems that die-hard Michael Connelly fans won't particularly like these short stories, because they are short, lacking a bit in character development, and have pretty simple plot lines.

On the other hand if you are looking for some good quality quick reads, then they may hit the spot, as they did for me.

My rating: 4.4

I've also reviewed
THE OVERLOOK
THE BRASS VERDICT
THE CONCRETE BLONDE
4.3, THE REVERSAL
4.4, SUICIDE RUN  

Review: THIS DARK ROAD TO MERCY, Wiley Cash

• first published by HarperLuxe 2014
• ISBN 978-0-06-227844-9
• 336 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (publisher)

The critically acclaimed author of the New York Times bestseller A Land More Kind Than Home returns with a resonant novel of love and atonement, blood and vengeance, set in western North Carolina, involving two young sisters, a wayward father, and an enemy determined to see him pay for his sins.

After their mother's unexpected death, twelve-year-old Easter and her six-year-old sister Ruby are adjusting to life in foster care when their errant father, Wade, suddenly appears. Since Wade signed away his legal rights, the only way he can get his daughters back is to steal them away in the night.

Brady Weller, the girls' court-appointed guardian, begins looking for Wade, and he quickly turns up unsettling information linking Wade to a recent armored car heist, one with a whopping $14.5 million missing. But Brady Weller isn't the only one hunting the desperate father. Robert Pruitt, a shady and mercurial man nursing a years-old vendetta, is also determined to find Wade and claim his due.

Narrated by a trio of alternating voices, This Dark Road to Mercy is a story about the indelible power of family and the primal desire to outrun a past that refuses to let go.

My Take

This book is probably at the very edge of the crime fiction genre - crimes have been committed, even murders, but that is not the central theme of the story. What is central is a father's attempt to re-establish a relationship with his two daughters. He gradually wins both of them over, but they are all on the run.

The story asks a moral question - when Wade, who signed away his legal rights to his children, decides he wants to re-establish them, should he be allowed to? Or are they better off without him?

An engrossing read.

My rating: 4.7

Review: THAT AFFAIR NEXT DOOR, Anna Katherine Green

• first published 1897
  
• this edition contained in The Anna Katharine Green Mystery Megapack, a selection of 35 novels and stories published in e-book format by Wildside Press (May 20, 2013)
• #1 in the Amelia Butterworth series, also listed as Mr Gryce #8

Synopsis (Good Reads)

First published in 1897, That Affair Next Door is another fascinating study in human motivations intertwined with bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence that at first make very little sense. True to Green’s style, she calls up and explains each motivation, each piece of evidence with mathematical precision until the mystery unravels and the perpetrator is punished in a most fitting fashion.

The dead body of a woman was found under a large cabinet. But she had been dead four hours before the cabinet fell upon her. The owners of the house had been on vacation and the place empty. Who was she and why was she in the empty house all alone?

Amelia Butterworth lives next door and had noticed a man and a young woman entering the house close on midnight. Then the man came out some ten minutes later by himself. The next morning Amelia insists that a policeman gain access to the house and he and a cleaning lady discover the young woman's body.

My Take

I found this an exasperating novel. It is quite long and largely consists of theories regarding the murder posed by Amelia Butterworth and the 77 year old police detective Inspector Gryce.

Some reviews I have read of the Amelia Butterworth novels, of which this is the first, talk about Butterworth as being the forerunner of Miss Marple. Certainly, there are similarities: a quite elderly spinster, a bit of a sticky beak, rather self opiniated, and rather unlikeable. She softens as the novel progresses.

At times Miss Butterworth works in collaboration with the police, but after they make their first arrest, she decides that they have the wrong man, and strikes out investigating on her own, accompanied by her lady's maid. But each time she or the police come up with a scenario which doesn't quite fit the facts and in the long run Amelia Butterworth produces a rabbit from the hat, something the police did not know. But even then there is a twist to the tale, something Butterworth did not know.

My rating: 3.8

I have also reviewed: X.Y.Z. A Detective Story, a novella published in 1883

About the author

Anna Katharine Green (1846-1935) was an American poet and novelist. She was one of the first writers of detective fiction in America and distinguished herself by writing well plotted, legally accurate stories (no doubt assisted by her lawyer father). Born in Brooklyn, New York, her early ambition was to write romantic verse, and she corresponded with Ralph Waldo Emerson. When her poetry failed to gain recognition, she produced her first and best known novel, The Leavenworth Case (1878). She became a bestselling author, eventually publishing about 40 books. She was in some ways a progressive woman for her time-succeeding in a genre dominated by male writers-but she did not approve of many of her feminist contemporaries, and she was opposed to women's suffrage. Her other works include A Strange Disappearance (1880), The Affair Next Door (1897), The Circular Study (1902), The Filigree Ball (1903), The Millionaire Baby (1905), The House in the Mist (1905), The Woman in the Alcove (1906), The House of the Whispering Pines (1910), Initials Only (1912), and The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow (1917).

Review: MURDER ONE, Robert Dugoni

• First published by Touchstone, 2011
  
• #4 in the David Sloane series
• ISBN 978-1-4516-0669-0
• 374 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (author website)

A year after tragedy, attorney David Sloane has returned to work full time. At a black-tie dinner he reconnects with Barclay Reid, opposing counsel in Sloane's most prominent case. Barclay is suffering from her own personal tragedy after the death of her teenage daughter from a drug overdose. In the aftermath, Barclay has begun an intense crusade against the Russian drug traffickers she holds responsible for her daughter s death, pursuing them with a righteousness that matches Sloane's own zeal for justice. Sloane finds himself drawn to this woman, despite their adversarial past.

When Barclay's crusade stalls and the Russian drug dealer turns up dead, she stands accused of murder and Sloane is her chosen defender. Amidst the swirling media frenzy, in his first criminal case, Sloane finds himself once again in harm s way, while mounting evidence suggests Barclay is a woman with many secrets. And may not be quite as innocent or as in love with Sloane as she purports to be.

With his signature fast-paced, page-turning action, and exhilarating plot twists, Robert Dugoni once again proves why he' s so often been named as the heir to Grisham's literary throne.

My take

David Sloane, who normally takes on civil cases, agrees to defend Barclay Reid when she is accused of murder despite a clear conflict of interest and the fact that he does not usually take on murder cases. Barclay Reid says she wants him in court for her as he is known never to lose a case.

There's plenty of tension in this thriller as the court case proceeds, and just little inklings of what the truth might be. I found it also gave me a view of the American trial system, and the roles taken by prosecutor and defense, which differ quite markedly it seems from both British and Australian systems. The setting is Seattle. The "American-ness" of the novel obviously annoyed a previous borrower of this library book who had assiduously marked out differences in spelling and colloquial expression.

Recommended.

My rating: 4.5