Category: Courtroom Thrillers

‘The Best Defense’

by Ellis Cose

HarperCollins, $24

John Wisocki, a despondent manager about to be laid off by a computer company, gets a gun, writes a suicide note and plans to take his own life in the office of his subordinate – a worker being promoted over him.

Unfortunately, the subordinate suddenly appears, a struggle ensues and the subordinate – not Wisocki – ends up dead.

An awful situation, but it’s even worse: The subordinate, Francisco Garcia, is Hispanic, and the suicide note written by Wisocki, who is white, complains bitterly that Garcia’s promotion was due to his race and to their company’s misguided affirmative-action policies.

It is a tragedy fraught with meaning in our contentious times: Is this a terrible accident by a helpless victim of corporate downsizing – or cold-blooded murder by an embittered racist?

So begins “The Best Defense” (HarperCollins, $24), a thought-provoking new courtroom thriller by Newsweek contributing editor Ellis Cose. It is a novel with special resonance in Washington state, where the November ballot will include Initiative 200, a referendum designed to overturn many affirmative-action measures.

In Cose’s tightly constructed plot, the Hispanic prosecutor, Mario Santiago, sees it as a simple case of racially motivated homicide. Wisocki is charged with murder, though he claims Garcia’s death was accidental.

Squaring off against Santiago is his old flame and former colleague in the prosecutor’s office, Felicia Fontaine. A rising star of the criminal-defense bar, Fontaine views Wisocki as nothing more than an innocent victim of misguided affirmative-action policies who has been charged with a crime he did not commit.

Unfortunately for Fontaine, the case is singled out for heavy-handed attention by self-appointed civil-rights leaders who castigate, threaten, even attempt to seduce Fontaine – who happens to be black – for “selling out” by representing a racist. Even Santiago is treated less as an individual and more like a symbol by his own Hispanic community, which rallies to support the prosecution.

While prosecutor and defense lawyer struggle to stay focused on the case, the media and various interest groups swirl around them, chanting in protest or delivering harsh judgments on the two attorneys’ efforts.

Cose has set his sights higher than simply adding yet another title to the rapidly mounting heap of courtroom thrillers churned out by Grisham, Turow, Martini & Co. The author of several nonfiction works on race relations (“The Rage of a Privileged Class,” “Color-Blind”), he said in a telephone conversation that his intent in switching to fiction was partly to “have fun” – but also to reach a new and different audience as he continues to explore “the intersection of politics, race and law.”

Despite its thriller trappings, this is a formidable first novel. It is crisp, fast-paced and engaging. Best of all, in a genre glutted with lightweight fare, “The Best Defense” reaches higher to explore more complex and important issues.

It does, however, suffer some annoying cliches. Opposing lawyers who are former lovers abound in print, though they are rarely found in the flesh, and the sex scenes scattered throughout this relatively short novel seem perfunctory, unnecessary and are plainly written from a male perspective. In addition, the obligatory plot twist in the epilogue is not terribly surprising.

Yet those issues are minor. At the close of the novel, the reader is left with unsettling questions that may challenge long-held assumptions about some of the most sensitive issues of our time: race relations, affirmative action, diversity, corporate responsibility – and especially the quality of justice, as expressed in American society and its legal system.

‘The Perfect Witness’

by Barry Siegel

Ballantine, $24

“The Perfect Witness,” authored by Los Angeles Times reporter Barry Siegel, is a haunting thriller that explores difficult ethical issues with artfully drawn characters caught up in a tangle that pulls even tighter as the story progresses.

Set in La Graciosa, a small coast town in central California, the story revolves around two lawyers, Greg Monarch and Ira Sullivan. The two used to be partners, but Monarch makes a critical and deadly error in a death-penalty case that forever haunts him, and Sullivan drops out of the practice of law to dabble in drugs. When he is arrested one day for murder of the local postmaster, and can’t remember where he was, only Monarch can save him from the chair. But first he must confront his own ghosts, the ambitious and ruthless prosecuting attorney, and the state’s key witness – Sandy Polson, a beautiful pathological liar.

Siegel provokes his characters to explore the boundaries of ethics in pursuit of justice. How far can a lawyer go to present potential false evidence by a “perfect” witness to undermine a conviction achieved by that same witness’ false testimony? Siegel’s exploration of these thought-provoking questions – while telling a cliffhanger of a story – is a rare feat and outstanding entertainment.

‘Undue Influence’

by Steve Martini

Putnam, $22.95

Laurel Vega has a problem. In the midst of a hostile custody battle with her sleazy ex-husband, his new wife is found naked and dead – shot through the head – in the family bathtub. The evidence ominously points to Laurel.

Her only hope for keeping her children, and maybe her life, is Paul Madriani, who was married to her late sister.

So begins “Undue Influence,” an outstanding new courtroom thriller by Bellingham author Steve Martini, among the best of the recent flood of lawyers-turned-authors. Since debuting two years ago with “Compelling Evidence,” followed last year by “Prime Suspect” – both national bestsellers – Martini has more than 4 million copies of his books in print.

“Undue Influence,” however, outshines those earlier works; indeed, it rivals Scott Turow’s masterpiece of the courtroom-thriller genre, “Presumed Innocent.”

Courtroom veteran tells story

Once again, the story is told by Madriani, a battle-scarred courtroom veteran who is raising his young daughter Sarah since his wife Nikki’s death from cancer. He also made Nikki a deathbed promise to protect her younger sister, Laurel – a promise put to the test when Laurel is charged with the grisly bathtub murder.

There is overwhelming circumstantial evidence of Laurel’s guilt: She had left town after the murder and was apprehended several states away, washing a rug the ex-husband claims came from the bathroom where the murder occurred; a witness has placed her at the scene near the time of the murder; and the prosecutor produces video footage of a heated argument between Laurel and the victim.

In addition, an item from the dead woman’s purse was found in Laurel’s purse at the time of her arrest, and – to make matters worse – homicide detective Jimmy Lama, who is in charge of the investigation, has a blinding grudge against Madriani. Lama is only too delighted to have Madriani’s sister-in-law as a prime suspect for murder.

Of course, things are not always as they seem – a fact that the novel tantalizingly underscores as it thunders toward a devilish conclusion.

Author’s own experience shows

Martini’s own courtroom experience shows as he expertly propels readers through radical shifts in the interpretation of the physical evidence in Laurel’s trial – leading first to the conclusion that she did it, then casting doubt, then reversing things once again. In the last few pages, Martini deftly resolves the case with an unexpected but cleverly foreshadowed twist – a surprise resolution that seems a required element in today’s legal thrillers, but one that few writers can pull off as convincingly.

Martini emerges as a peer of Turow for, like the Chicago attorney’s fiction, “Undue Influence” has a plot that flows effortlessly and credibly, generating considerable suspense from a series of stunning courtroom reversals and surprises during a dramatic trial. Martini also easily surpasses the current king of the legal thriller, John Grisham, whose bestsellers such as “The Firm,” “The Client” and “The Pelican Brief” tend to rely on transparent plot contrivances to fabricate suspense and stitch together loose ends.

“Undue Influence” is not without weakness, however. It remains overburdened with sexual innuendo and unrealistic male-female dialogue, both common curses of the genre. One would think that, by now, the tough-talking, super-macho cop/detective/lawyer would be retired in favor of the subtler – and richer – characters who animate Turow’s more literary thrillers.

Nor does Martini attempt to address any larger moral issues: His purpose clearly is to entertain, not philosophize. But this is a criticism applicable to most thrillers – and “Undue Influence” stands head and shoulders above the pack. Indeed, readers should exercise caution; this book will lay waste to your sleeping schedule.

`The Burden of Proof”

by Scott Turow

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $22.95
He finds her body in the garage. Alejandro “Sandy” Stern, the brilliant defense attorney introduced in Scott Turow’s superb 1988 best seller, “Presumed Innocent,” arrives home preoccupied with the defense of his brother-in-law, who is being investigated for insider trading. Expecting to be greeted by Clara, his demure wife of 30 years, Stern instead is confronted with her suicide in the garage.

So begins “The Burden of Proof,” Turow’s riveting second novel. Rather than seeking to duplicate his success in “Presumed Innocent” with another whodunit murdery-mystery, Turow instead tackles a more complex and challenging theme: the limits of personal and professional relationships.

Turow uses Stern’s investigation of both his wife’s death and his client’s professional conduct to examine fundamental questions: How well can you ever know another person? How binding is a lawyer’s duty to his or her client? Or a husband’s duty to his wife? Or a father’s to his three grown children? The plot of “The Burden of Proof” is thoroughly engaging, though not as devilishly surprising as Turow’s first novel.

Stern was the attorney in “Presumed Innocent” who defended Rusty Sabich, the Kindle County prosecutor accused of a brutal rape and murder. Apart from passing references (to tell us, for example, that three years have passed and that Sabich has become a judge), the new book has nothing to do with events of the first. Newcomers to Turow need not fear.

In “The Burden of Proof,” Stern struggles to defend from indictment his sister’s husband, Dixon Hartnell, the wheeler-dealer head of a commodity-futures trading house and a man with whom Stern has had a long, uneasy relationship. Simultaneously he struggles to accept his wife’s suicide.

Puzzling over Clara’s private life, he reexamines what he thought he knew, arriving at what he believes to have been her reasons for taking her life, only to have each delicately constructed rationale collapse in the face of another unexpected development. Stern gradually comes to realize how little he actually knew of his wife or her inner turmoil.

Turow, himself a Chicago lawyer, is most successful in probing the complexities of the lawyer-client relationship. He masterfully revolves the familial and client entanglements to reveal new perspectives on the limits of a lawyer’s ability to defend his or her client – questions complicated by Stern’s string of sexual liaisons in the aftermath of Clara’s death and an ethically questionable flirtation with the prosecutor opposing him in the Hartnell case.

Indeed, at least for the lawyers reading this novel, one of its pleasures is the accuracy and care with which the limits are drawn and the principles explained. Seeking to trace ownership of an account in Hartnell’s brokerage firm, the prosecutor subpoenas documents from Hartnell, who, fearing further warrants, places certain sensitive documents in a safe he delivers to Stern’s office. When Stern himself is subpoenaed to produce the safe containing confidential information about his client, the conflict becomes acute.

Without disclosing the slam-bang finish – rest assured, there is one – Sandy Stern ultimately discovers that his tidy world is not as it has seemed. Both mysteries – Clara’s death and Hartnell’s dealings – suddenly dovetail, undermining all of Stern’s original assessments of people and prior events. Stern’s ethical obligation to defend his client zealously is suddenly placed in opposition to his duty as a husband and a father.

The conclusion of “The Burden of Proof” is surprising, almost too clever. Here, as in a few other places, the plot becomes a bit implausible as Turow struggles to tie loose ends together. Although it fails to match the sheer suspense of Turow’s first effort, “The Burden of Proof” is nonetheless a disturbing examination of moral complexities, and a worthy and compelling novel.