- Hardcover: 1 pages
- Publisher: GP Putnam And Sons; Third Printing edition (Jan 1 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0399145362
- ISBN-13: 978-0399145360
- Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 15.5 x 3.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 726 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (69 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #959,702 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Sleuthing California defense counsel Paul Madriani lands one of his twistiest cases to date. His client, sport fisherman Jonah Hale, won $87 million in a lottery but lost his heart. Jonah's got custody of his eight-year-old grandkid Mandy, because his daughter Jessica is a cokehead party animal. Sprung from jail, Jessica demands cash. Jonah says no. So Jessica and Mandy disappear, with help from marital-rape-victim-turned-fanatical-activist Zolanda Suade. Suade's group, Vanishing Victims, specializes in thwarting courts and bashing rich males.
Madriani tries to reason with Suade, who almost pulls a gun on him, then taunts him with a press release: Suade's going public with Jessica's charge that Jonah molested Mandy. Madriani's girlfriend works in Child Protective Services, so he gets a tidbit or two of inside info--the charge is phony, but because CPS can't comment on cases, the smear will suffice to ignite a media firestorm. When Suade turns up dead, media interest does not subside. In court, circumstantial evidence forms a tightening noose around Jonah's neck, and Madriani starts wondering whether Jonah did kill Suade. Also, underworld types who may know Jessica and/or a Mexican drug lord start stalking Madriani, and more corpses pop up.
Martini, who covered the Manson trial, then became a lawyer and a bestselling novelist, is great at realistic, ingenious courtroom suspense, media-circus scenes, and dramatizing the impact of office politics on legal proceedings. His characters and prose are workmanlike but sturdy. Always grouped with lawyers-turned-writers Scott Turow and John Grisham, Martini thinks Turow's a better writer (in terms of character and dialogue), and Grisham's a natural-born storyteller who towers over all, but that he, Martini, is a better storyteller than Turow and a better writer than Grisham. The Attorney is evidence that he may be right. --Tim Appelo
From Publishers Weekly
The tireless Paul Madriani, Martini's popular lawyer/sleuth (The Judge; Compelling Evidence), barely has a chance to hang a shingle in San Diego--where he has moved to be closer to his lover, child advocate Susan McKay--before he is sucked into another engrossing court battle. When Madriani takes on elderly Jonah Hale's case, it seems at first he is dealing with a simple kidnapping. Hale's granddaughter, eight-year-old Amanda, under Hale's custody, has been whisked away by Zolanda Suade, who runs Vanishing Victims, an organization that purports to rescue kids from abusive situations. Now Suade is falsely accusing Hale of molestation to justify returning the girl to her mother--Hale's drug-addled, ex-con daughter, Jessica, who's never shown any interest in raising her child. Suade apparently has an ulterior motive: keeping Amanda in hiding until she can extort a hefty ransom from Hale, who recently won $87 million in the state lottery. Before Madriani, with Susan's expert assistance, can get far in his investigations, Suade is found shot to death, and Hale, who had plenty of motive to kill him, is arrested. Madriani is increasingly overmatched by a dogged prosecutor. Worse, those assisting Madriani in Hale's defense keep getting murdered, and Madriani may be next in line. Except for the occasional cliche (bodies lined up "like cordwood," minds "like steel traps"), Martini's prose shows marked improvement. Crisp dialogue and tart observations about legal maneuvering distinguish his courtroom scenes, and the new setting, San Diego, is colorfully rendered. It's a shame that the otherwise cleverly conceived plot falters in the homestretch with a poorly concealed twist that most readers will see coming well ahead of time. Mystery Guild main selection, Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selections. (Jan.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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First Sentence
I can trace it back with precision to one of those fitful weeks in August, when the thermometer hit triple digits for the tenth day in a row. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
I can trace it back with precision to one of those fitful weeks in August, when the thermometer hit triple digits for the tenth day in a row. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
wonderful legal thriller,
By "truthandjustice" (USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Attorney (Mass Market Paperback)
I hadn't read many of his books and was really pleased when I read this one. Mandriani is an attorney and one of his clients, who he had defended before with good results, comes to him again. Jonah Hale, who has since won one of the biggest lotteries, wants Mandriani to find his grand-daughter who has been kidnapped by his daughter, a drug user and released felon. The woman who he feels helped his daughter with the kidnapping ends up murdered and he is accused of the murder. Mandriani has his hands full trying to keep up with all the different angles and suspects. The ending may surprise you. I enjoyed the book and I think you will too. I am looking forward to reading another of his books.
3.0 out of 5 stars
slow to get going, long wait til surprise ending; fair drama,
By
This review is from: The Attorney (Mass Market Paperback)
This is our third Martini -- er, the author's books that is. We enjoyed "Simeon Chamber" (his first outing), but felt the "List" was too dry and set too sluggish a pace for our taste. We tried the "Attorney" to see if the defense attorney Paul Madriani series, which now has some half dozen entries, might be more entertaining. Alas, a rather mundane plot gets us off to a lackluster start -- Jonah Hale's granddaughter Amanda, of whom he has legal custody, is kidnapped by her recent ex-con natural mother, with the help of a feminist activist, Zolanda Suade, who specializes in skirting the law and resisting the Establishment. Hale hires Madriani (instead of an private eye?), but little more happens until some 100 pages later, when Suade is discovered murdered. Hale is arrested on a fairly extensive list of evidence that points to him, coupled with his incentive, motive, and opportunity. At that point, Paul switches into the true mode of defending his client, with some helpers (and some inside scoop from his lady friend, director of Child Protective Services). Some reasonably interesting courtroom scenes follow as first the accused is arraigned without bail and then actually tried for the murder. Near the end, in what we thought was a somewhat unfair plot development, Hale suffers a heart attack, suspending the trial. While he's hospitalized, a new Mexican drug-runner-type villain surfaces, who has been hunted half-heartedly through the book, and sheds enough doubt on the case that for all practical purposes the prosecution is motivated to declare a mistrial and not bother with a second go-round. A twist at the end tells us readers who the perp actually was. This novel is sort of like a car running a 300-mile car race in first gear for 100 miles, second gear for 280 miles, and then a mad dash to the finish line without realizing one is 50 laps behind -- hardly a compelling run. Such is the nature of this book; while Madriani is a nice enough guy, the plot lacked zest and suspense, nor could the court scenes seize the moment "Perry Mason"-style. In fact, we're thinking maybe a third martini cocktail might be more fun!
3.0 out of 5 stars
Nice Entry,
By bill runyon (Indiana) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Attorney (Mass Market Paperback)
The author is a careful storyteller, and this one will hold the interest of most readers. This story involves the hero-attorneygetting involved in what looks like a child-custody case, but which quickly escalates into a kidnapping by a zealot who is more interested in self-aggrandisement than helping either women or children. But the mother of the kidnapped child is a drug addict, with connections--in more than one way--to a Mexican drug lord, who also runs with thieves and burglars, so the attorney, and the child's grandparents, mount a full-blown search. Unhappily, the zealot gets killed, and the missing child's grandfather is charged and put on trial, so the attorney has to go to work in the field he knows best, a criminal trial. The concept is very interesting, and one played out rather occasionally in real life, so it's conclusion is wanted by every reader. There are a couple of nice twists to its conclusion, as the attorney, his pragmatic partner, and his love interest encounter multiple obstacles, both in court and on the street. A shoot-out, in the midst of an ether fire, in a Mexican bar bring a lot of danger, along with a few answers. Unhappily, the book bogs down significantly in the middle with chapters that read like a trial transcript. The concept may sound interesting to someone who has never struggled with an actual trial transcript, but, in fact, such transcripts, of even the most interesting trial, are filled with numbing detail and repetition, and the author sticks too closely to the genuine article. It doesn't make for very interesting reading, and the progress of the story really slows down in those parts. But it is an interesting story with a nice, thought-provoking conclusion.
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