Legal

This legal thriller’s title is reminiscent of The Lincoln Lawyer, and Rotstein’s ace storytelling will also bring vintage Grisham to mind. The lead character, Elvis Henderson, even lives out of a vehicle—the camper van that he parks outside the run-down motel where his coworker, Margaret Booth, stays while they defend the case that has Alabama rapt. Destiny Grace Harper is accused of murdering her twin babies, but not by any action she took. She didn’t save them because her strict Christian church doesn’t believe in medical treatment. When her babies were discovered to have a lethal condition in utero, one that could be reversed with a simple surgery, Destiny Grace ran away rather than succumb to the court-ordered procedure. Now Elvis is up against pro-life locals, his client’s refusal to cooperate in her own defense, and a judge that’s just as stubborn. Both his wily arguments and the prosecutors vigorous rebuttals are spellbinding enough, but the story also digs into the rot that’s sometimes behind nice-family facades and small-town politeness. With James Patterson a former co-author of Rotstein’s (in The Family Lawyer), this has a ready-made audience, but newcomers to Rotstein will soon want more too.

Keera Duggan has had her fill of being pushed around. She had to leave her promising job in the Seattle prosecutor’s office because her one-time romantic interest couldn’t take no for an answer She’s now reluctantly taken her legal skills to Patrick Duggan & Associates, a move she swore she’d never make. Patrick is her alcoholic father and the associates are Keera and her long-suffering sisters.

As the newbie, Keera’s paying her dues on small-time cases until the last straw: her father is too drunk for court and she must step in. So, when a big case comes up on a night when she’s on phone duty, she grabs it and verbally elbows her family out of the way the next day. An ultra-rich money manager is accused of killing his wife, a disabled woman (she uses a wheelchair and is unfortunately described throughout the book as “confined” to it). She couldn’t have killed herself, even though she’s found at home alone, shot in the head, with a gun beside her. The only possibility seems a SODDI defense (some other dude did it).

Then Keera, a skilled chess player, gets an email from a stranger warning her that, “You’re in the game of your life, so play like your life depends on it.” As well as following an entire game of chess, move by move, that Keera plays with an online opponent, readers will eagerly follow the wonderfully obstinate Keera as she refuses to let up on this case even as the obstacles, puzzles, and twists keep coming. Dugoni’s afterword explains that legal thrillers are his roots, and with the intricate plotting and winning characterization here, readers will be glad he returned to them.

The 48th novel from the biggest name in legal thrillers is a departure for him, with the book taking place over generations and lots more of it outside the courtroom than usual, all to great effect. The boys of the title are two sets of fathers and sons on very different sides of the law in Biloxi, Mississippi. Their saga starts with a look at the founding of the hardscrabble city by Croatian fishermen. By the time we reach the 1950s and meet Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco, the sons in question, the city has thriving clubs with prostitution, gambling, and all the violence and intimidation that go alongside. Hugh’s father, Lance, is the head of organized crime in Biloxi, able to grow his awful interests with the help of corrupt police. Fighting against him and his ilk is Keith’s father, Jesse, a lawyer whose education and climb we’ve witnessed and who dreams of becoming DA and cleaning up his city for good. As the two sides becomen entrenched, Grisham takes us on side trips that follow the various small-time and not-so-small-time criminals whose work feeds the Rudy-Malco divide, with the story building toward an epic legal showdown that pits honor against evil. There are no major female characters here, and the book may not pass the Bechdel test, but readers who can overlook that will be treated to vintage Grisham: a great story, characters to cheer for and loathe, and gripping legal drama. Fans of Jeffrey Archer as well as of Grisham will love this.