In Reference to Murder: Author R&R with Richard A. Danzig

In Reference to Murder: Author R&R with Richard A. Danzig: Richard A Danzig is an attorney, artist, entrepreneur, and author. He practiced law in New York for over forty years and has represented m...

In Reference to Murder: Author R&R with Dan Buzzetta

In Reference to Murder: Author R&R with Dan Buzzetta: This is the new (hopefully permanent) home of In Reference to Murder , following Typepad's shutdown of its platform as of October 1, 202...

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Southern Killer by Peter O'Mahoney

Peter O'Mahoney independently publishes four different adult thriller series with his own name as well as children’s books under the name Peter Patrick. Interestingly, his thrillers are spread across the United States: private investigator Jack Valentine and criminal defense attorney Tex Hunter are in Chicago, attorney Bill Harvey is in Los Angeles, and Joe Hennessy’s law office is in Charleston, South Carolina.

The third book in the Hennessy series is The Southern Killer (2023). Twenty years ago Joe Hennessy’s 10-year-old son was kidnapped and killed. Overwhelmed with grief, Hennessy left Charleston and established a vineyard named after his son in the rural region of South Carolina. Successive years of drought ruined the vines and the grapes, threatening the survival of what he saw as his son’s legacy. He returned to Charleston and his law practice to generate enough revenue to re-establish the vineyard.

Hennessy is approached by a convicted felon who was suspected of being complicit in his son’s death. He promises to tell Hennessy everything he knows about Hennessy’s son if Hennessy will keep the felon’s unacknowledged daughter from being convicted of murder. The teenaged Alicia Fenton stood accused of killing her stepfather Dennis Fenton, a former cop, known drug addict, and associate of biker gangs, on the night Fenton was released from prison. Hennessy is desperate to find out what happened to his son so he agrees to help Alicia.

While she claimed self-defense, from the beginning the deck is stacked against her. Even though Fenton was a crooked cop, his former colleagues, many of them with questionable associates themselves, intend to see his killer punished and the district attorney crumbles under their pressure. Hennessy meets resistance and threats at every attempt to locate witnesses and learn more about the night Fenton died.

There are four titles in this series, each has been released around six months after its predecessor. This one demonstrates the flaws of books produced with that kind of speed. While the essential plot is sound, the story lacks the narrative detail and the depth of characterization that would elevate it from an okay book to a strong legal thriller. An easy fast read as it stands but a development editor would have been helpful. Surprisingly, both Amazon and Goodreads reviews rate it highly.

 

·         ASIN: ‎B0BSWTHDWN

·         Publisher: ‎Independently published (January 24, 2023)

·         Language: ‎English

·         Paperback: ‎300 pages

·         ISBN-13: ‎979-8374832556

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/48feJxb

 

 Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Cheater’s Game by Paul Levine

Paul Levine is a former journalist and lawyer who lives in Florida. He has won the John D. MacDonald Fiction Award and been nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, International Thriller, Shamus, and James Thurber awards. His publishing career began in 1990 with the first novel about Jake Lassiter, a lawyer in Miami, Florida. Both Levine and Lassiter are graduates of Pennsylvania State University, where the fictional Lassiter played football for the famous Joe Paterno. Lassiter went on to play professional football with the Miami Dolphins. Levine’s most recent legal thriller about Lassiter, the thirteenth, is dedicated to Paterno.

Cheater’s Game (Herald Square Publishing, 2020) highlights the recent college admissions scandal in which wealthy parents bribed top universities to admit their children who otherwise would not be accepted. Jake Lassiter comes out of retirement to defend his 20-year-old nephew Kip who has been accused of taking SAT tests in the place of college applicants. Max Ringle, the mastermind of the bribery and testing scam, turned informant as soon as he realized the FBI was investigating and made Kip his scapegoat.

Lassiter is hardly at the top of his game. His past as a football player has caught up with him and he’s been diagnosed with progressive brain damage. His doctor and fiancé Dr. Melissa Gold does her best to bolster him for the strain of the job he’s undertaken, but the stress of defending his nephew exacerbates his visible symptoms. He can’t always control them in the courtroom. His scenes with the unpredictable Federal judge trying the case are among the best in what is a very good legal thriller. Of course the pivotal segment is Lassiter’s questioning of the wealthy entitled parents and their spoiled children, most of whom were not charged. They show themselves to be positively despicable, presenting them as blameless in a racket that could not have existed without them.

A secondary theme is the largely unrecognized but widespread brain trauma so many football players suffer; the story relays a great deal of data about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The attempts of interested parties to spin the research findings to their own benefit and to the detriment of the players are highlighted. Unfortunately this part is probably fact-based too.

A thought-provoking, informative, and entertaining legal thriller. Highly recommended.

·         Publisher: ‎ Herald Square Publishing (April 20, 2020)

·         Language: ‎ English

·         Paperback: ‎ 422 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎ 173425100X

·         ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1734251005

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2022

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Misjudged by James Chandler

Misjudged by James Chandler (Severn River Publishing, 2020) is the first book in a new legal thriller series with Sam Johnstone as the lead character. Chandler is the pseudonym of Paul Phillips, a retired career Army officer who now is a circuit court judge in Wyoming. Johnstone is a disabled veteran who loves to fish and who has a great reverence for the law. His untreated PTSD has left him unable to hold steady employment on the East Coast, and he accepts the last-chance offer of an old law school friend to join his small law practice in Custer, Wyoming.

The effects of PTSD on Sam, even years after the precipitating event, are wrenching. When an easel falls over in the courtroom, Sam has a flashback and screams “Incoming!” as he dives under a table, disrupting judicial proceedings. The only place Sam finds peace is fishing alone in the scenic mountain lakes and streams. Sam accepts the help he’s declined for years during the story in a strong effort by the author to show veterans the impact of the hard years of middle Eastern conflict can be reduced.

The town of Custer is a far cry from the law practices of Georgetown in Washington, DC, where Sam has been working. The lawyers in town are often uncomfortably cozy with the two judges who hold sway over the courthouse, and the janitors often know as much about cases being tried as the participants. To get along, lawyers go along, sometimes at the expense of the equitable application of the law. I’ll never trust a small-town lawyer again after reading this book. The degree of wheeling and dealing and under the table arrangements is staggering, especially considering the size of Custer.

The caliber of cases is depressingly mundane. Custer has a severe substance abuse problem and most crimes can be traced to alcohol, prescription drugs, or illegally manufactured ones. Soon after Sam’s arrival, another alcoholic veteran with PTSD is arrested for a particularly gory murder, and Sam feels compelled to take the case to ensure the man is treated fairly. Since a conviction would be convenient for everyone but the defendant, Sam finds himself battling powerful forces. How he prevails is a well-organized and immersive story with memorable characters in an atypical setting for a legal thriller. Highly recommended.

 

·         Publisher: ‎ Severn River Publishing (November 10, 2020)

·         Language: ‎ English

·         Hardcover: ‎ 364 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎ 1648750354

·         ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1648750359 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2021

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Judge by Steve Martini

After an overwhelming several days watching events at home and abroad, I wanted an absorbing story that would engage my attention; I found it in one of Steve Martini’s early legal thrillers. Martini started his career in journalism, where he reported on legal issues in the California State Capitol. He then attended law school and undertook a varied private practice. He began fiction writing in the mid-1980s, publishing three stand-alone novels and 14 books and a novella in his Paul Madriani series. A fifteenth full-length book was published in 2017, according to Fantastic Fiction; it is labelled unavailable on Amazon, with only one review. His website does not list this last title. Apparently it was not actually released.

The fourth book about Madriani is The Judge (Putnam, 1996); it is nearly perfect. At the request of a friend Madriani takes a police officer under investigation as a client. Authorities believe San Francisco police union officials have been skimming funds, and the judge in charge of the grand jury is leaning hard on Madriani’s client to testify. In an opening scene Judge Armando Acosta tells Madriani that his client can turn his buddies in or go to jail. Madriani knows a police officer will not survive in jail, even for the two or three days it would take to overturn the judge’s ruling.

The question whether to testify is quickly rendered moot when the judge is arrested for soliciting a prostitute. The prostitute is an undercover part-time agent of the SFPD Vice squad; the situation reeks of a set-up. In a sequence of events so unlikely that they could really happen, Madriani gets pulled in as the defense attorney for the judge who was threatening him just days before. Within a couple of days, the undercover agent is found dead in a dumpster. The judge can’t provide an alibi, and Madriani quickly has a capital murder charge to defend instead of a misdemeanor.

Martini’s dialog, pacing, and plotting shine in a courtroom setting, and that’s where most of this book takes place. Devious cross-examination of prospective jurors, smart deflection of the prosecuting attorney, and clever questioning of forensic experts show Martini’s expertise in the trial venue. I particularly enjoyed Madriani’s wry and witty internal commentary throughout. The culmination does not take place in the courtroom; instead there’s a great chase scene with a completely unexpected culprit. Not surprisingly the book was turned into a miniseries. It aired on NBC in May 2001 with Chris Noth as Madriani and Edward Olmos as Judge Acosta. This story is highly recommended, especially for fans of legal thrillers. 

·         Publisher: ‎ Putnam Adult (January 3, 1996)

·         Language: ‎ English

·         Hardcover: ‎ 389 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎ 0399140433

·         ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0399140433

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2021

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: The Hallows by Victor Methos

Victor Methos is a successful practicing attorney in a firm he co-founded in Utah as well as an accomplished author with 50 mystery and science fiction novels to his credit including nine series. His stand-alone The Gambler’s Jury (Thomas & Mercer, 2018) was shortlisted for the Edgar’s Best Novel award.

The following stand-alone The Hallows (Thomas & Mercer, 2019) is a fine legal thriller. Tatum Graham is on top of the world, a leading defense lawyer in Miami, Florida, where his talent is in demand by the rich and famous. Known for getting his clients acquitted even in the most egregious situations, he charges outrageous fees and the luminaries in need of his services willingly pay them. Until he defends someone who celebrates his acquittal by promptly committing murder.

Tatum turns his back on Miami and his life there in disgust and desperation and heads back to his small hometown in Utah, on his way to somewhere he can hide. There he finds his desperately ill father from whom he parted on bad terms years before and his high school girlfriend Gates who is now the district attorney in an underfunded and understaffed office. Gates persuades Tatum to stay around long enough to help the two freshly minted lawyers in her office prosecute a murder case. Ineptly investigated by the local police and overshadowed by the political power of the defendants’ families, the case looks lost from the start. Tatum galvanizes the limited resources at his disposal and plunges in, feeling quite strange to be on the prosecutorial side of the fence. Misdirection abounds as he searches for more evidence to convict the defendants, resulting in a gratifying surprise ending.

No surprises in the outline of the plot, the conventions of the legal thriller are all there: the disenchanted superstar, the case with impossible odds, political opposition, the love from the past, the opportunity for redemption. Methos embellishes and polishes these standard components until they gleam like new in this sleek piece of writing. Compulsively readable. Readers of legal thrillers and police procedurals will especially enjoy this book.  

Winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction.

 

·         Publisher: Thomas & Mercer (July 1, 2019)

·         Language: English

·         Hardcover: 350 pages

·         ISBN-10: 1542042747

·         ISBN-13: 978-1542042741

Aubrey Hamilton ©2021

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Final Verdict by Sheldon Siegel

I love good legal thrillers and I was delighted to learn about this new-to-me series. Final Verdict by Sheldon Siegel (Putnam, 2003) is the fourth book in a fine string of stories set in San Francisco. Fans of John Lescroart and Scott Turow will enjoy these mysteries with unforgettable characters and great courtroom scenes.

Mike Daley, a former priest, and his ex-wife Rosie Fernandez have resumed their law practice in San Francisco after a year of teaching in Berkeley. The opening scene demonstrates Mike’s courtroom skills better than anyone could describe them, as he simultaneously puts an overly ambitious new Assistant District Attorney in his place and extracts a repeat offender from a felony charge involving a purloined rotisserie chicken.

The self-congratulations within Mike and Rosie’s office stop abruptly when Leon Walker, a former client, calls to ask for Mike’s assistance on a murder charge. Rosie did not believe in Leon’s innocence when Mike defended him years ago and to this day thinks Mike represented a guilty man, so she doesn’t want anything to do with Leon now. The media agreed with Rosie at the time, and Leon’s life never got back on track.

Mike decides to at least see what the case is about. On first glance, it appears to be open-and-shut. A hotshot venture capitalist is found stabbed to death in an alley near a liquor store where Leon works. Leon is found close by, unconscious with a blood-covered knife and the victim’s money in his pocket.

Mike decides to represent Leon when he learns that Leon is terminally ill with only weeks to live. He cannot possibly survive long enough for a trial, and he wants his name cleared before he dies. Under the circumstances Rosie can’t really object even though she’s not happy. Mike and his brother, a private investigator, start asking questions and learn, contrary to the information first received, everyone did not love the victim. And just what was a wealthy guy in a Mercedes doing so far from home in a run-down and dangerous area of the city?

Siegel has a flair for characterization; even the minor ones in this story stand out. Smoothly paced, the turns and twists took me by surprise every time I thought I understood the direction the plot was unfolding. An absorbing story! Number 11 in this series was released in March 2020. Anyone unfamiliar with Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez have an abundance of satisfying reading to look forward to.

            

·                     Hardcover: 400 pages

·                     Publisher: Putnam Adult; First Edition (August 11, 2003)

·                     Language: English

·                     ISBN-10: 0399150420

·                     ISBN-13: 978-0399150425

Aubrey Hamilton ©2020

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Irreparable Harm by Melissa F. Miller

Irreparable Harm by Melissa F. Miller (Brown Street Books, 2011) is the first book in the Sasha McCandless series of legal thrillers. McCandless is a senior associate with Prescott & Talbott, a large law firm in Pittsburgh, who is working hard to be in contention for the partnership that will be awarded to just a few stalwart employees in the spring. The petite lawyer also takes Krav Maga classes every day before work. She’d had no reason yet to implement the lessons in hand-to-hand combat but they increased her self-confidence as she walked to her car late at night.

When a commercial airplane belonging to one of the firm’s largest clients crashed, losing all of the passengers on board, McCandless is assigned to lead the team preparing for the inevitable litigation. Not surprisingly the first lawsuit claiming the airline’s liability is filed within 48 hours. An agent with the Pittsburgh Office of the Federal Air Marshal Service component of the Department of Homeland Security, who is investigating the leak of sensitive information on social media, begins to cross-check his data against that of the crash investigators, which leads him to Prescott & Talbott. He and McCandless realize that their separate cases overlap, after they jointly discover a body and begin to work together.

I am always looking for legal thrillers and I read this entertaining, if not especially realistic, story in one sitting. I could wish there were less romance and more mystery and legal action but there was enough to keep me reading. Perhaps the later stories in the series, there are 11 of them, are more focused.

Melissa F. Miller is a busy author with four book series to her credit. Besides the Sasha McCandless stories, she writes about Assistant U.S. Attorney Aroostine Higgins in another legal scenario; Dr. Bodhi King, a forensic pathology consultant; and three sisters named Rosemary, Sage, and Thyme in a light cozy series that looks heavy on romance.

·         Paperback: 448 pages

·         Publisher: Brown Street Books (April 28, 2011)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 0983492700

·         ISBN-13: 978-0983492702

Aubrey Hamilton ©2019

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Lesa's Book Critiques: The Murder List by Hank Phillippi Ryan

Lesa's Book Critiques: The Murder List by Hank Phillippi Ryan

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Compelling Evidence by Steve Martini

Compelling Evidence by Steve Martini (Putnam, 1992) is the first of 15 (so far) legal thrillers featuring defense attorney Paul Madriani in Los Angeles, California. Madriani is building a solo practice after his unceremonious departure from a large corporate practice, caused by the discovery of Madriani’s affair with the much younger wife of the senior partner Ben Potter. After a year of no contact, Potter wants to meet with Madriani, as it turns out, to make sure the hatchet between them is buried. Potter is on the verge of being nominated for the U. S. Supreme Court and he wants no subtle smear to mar the exhaustive background investigation that is about to begin.

Within 24 hours after their meeting Potter is found dead, the victim of a homicide clumsily disguised as suicide. Madriani is inveigled into defending the young Mrs. Potter, uneasy about their past history which, if discovered by the media, would destroy the credibility of any defense he could prepare. Add a partner who is the default recipient of Potter’s wildly successful legal practice if Madriani loses and a judge up for re-election who is determined no appeal or hung jury will tarnish his record, along with someone in the prosecutor’s office issuing unauthorized but damaging information about the defendant to the press, and the case could not be less promising.

Although the early writing in places needed a strong editor that it didn’t get, once the legal part of the story begins, it gallops at a breakneck pace until the surprise ending. (The Kirkus reviewer said the ending was predictable but I have no idea how anyone could have guessed it. Perhaps I am gullible.) Martini has the legal profession down cold, from the set-up and operations of large corporate practices to the showboating lawyer who is always chasing his next media opportunity regardless of his client’s interests he is supposed to be protecting. The lengthy section on the psychology of jury selection is fascinating. Highly recommended to fans of Scott Turow and John Lescroart.

Hardcover: 379 pages

Publisher: Putnam Pub Group (February 1, 1992)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 9780399137129

ISBN-13: 978-0399137129

Aubrey Hamilton ©2019

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night. 

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: The Defendants by John Ellsworth

The Defendants  by John Ellsworth (Subjudica House, 2014) is the first book in his Thaddeus Murfee legal thriller series, although a prequel released in 2018 makes it the second in the chronology of series events. Less than two years of legal practice in the small town of Orbit, somewhere in southern Illinois, has left Thaddeus ill-prepared to take on a defense for murder, but his client, poor but honest waitress Ermeline Ransom insists he’s the only lawyer she trusts.

Ermeline unfortunately got between the local public works contractor and the Chicago mob to whom the contractor had discontinued kickbacks. When a visit from a mob enforcer did not shake the overdue payments loose, the enforcer attacked Ermeline and set the stage for the contractor to be accused of the crime. After the Orbit Attorney General declined to prosecute for lack of evidence, Ermeline then retained Thaddeus to pursue civil damages.

This was not what the mob had in mind; they did not want any competition for the money they believed the contractor owed them. They decided to squash these upstarts from nowhere once and for all by killing the contractor and slickly framing Ermeline. The local police had no choice but to arrest her on the face of the evidence but Thaddeus knows she didn’t do it. How he outsmarts the cutthroat prosecuting attorney from Chicago while collecting the proof and testimony needed to bring the crime home to its perpetrators make a lively absorbing read.

The author says these books, about a dozen in the series, are based on his early days as a practicing lawyer, and I believe him. Thaddeus makes some rookie mistakes that his more experienced friends and paralegal manage to undo. He makes up in zeal what he lacks in experience, though. The residents of Orbit come together around Ermeline and her son to protect them as much as they can, showing some of the best reasons to live in a small town. Readers of legal thrillers will especially like this book.

·         Paperback: 262 pages

·         Publisher: Subjudica House (January 15, 2014)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 0615953778

·         ISBN-13: 978-0615953779

Aubrey Hamilton ©2019

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.