Missing Witness [Mass Market Paperback]

Young lawyer Doug McKenzie turns down a lucrative job at a big city firm in favor of a small partnership in Phoenix, with the stipulation that he be permitted to work with his idol Dan Morgan, who some call the greatest litagator there ever was. During his first few months on the job, however, Doug doesn't even meet Dan, let alone work with him. But then, the daughter-in-law of the firm's biggest client is accused of murdering her husband, and suddently Dan Morgan has another great case to litagate--and Doug, with his own personal connection to the defendent and her family, walks out on another opportunity (a golf tournament) to be at Dan's side. Doug and Dan pull out all of the stops for their beautiful defendent, but as the story continues, the are faced with an unexpected dilemma in the form of their defendant's daughter.

This is a page-turning legal thriller reminiscent of works by legal masters such as Turow and Grisham. In fact, Missing Witness reminded me in particular of the latter's The Firm, as Doug finds himself questioning his own actions as well as those of others around him. The suspense builds throughout the novel, and the reader is treated to some gripping courtroom scenes along the way. The early 70s setting does not seem to add much but is necessary for the legal precedents of that time. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and eagerly away author Campbell's next offering.

Gordon Campbell, an experienced trial attorney, proves himself an adroit and polished suspense writer in MISSING WITNESS, his debut as an author of fiction. He sets his story in 1973 Arizona and begins with two persons entering a little house. Six shots ring out. The front door opens again and the two emerge. One drops a gun as the property's sheep man, Juan Menchaka, who has been watching and listening from afar, runs to them. He looks inside and sees a man dead, in a pool of blood.

Soon Doug McKenzie, newly-hired associate at Butler and Menendez, gets to sit second chair as his firm's legendary defense lawyer, Dan Morgan, tries to prove their client, beautiful Rita Eddington, innocent of gunning down her husband, Travis. Peculiarly, wealthy rancher Ferris Eddington, Travis' father, insists on personally bankrolling his daughter-in-law's first-class defense. Dan tells Doug that to get Rita acquitted, they must prove the other person who entered house with Rita killed Travis. That would be 12-year-old Miranda Eddington, Rita and Travis' daughter, who has a history of mental problems and who went into an apparently catatonic state when she was transported to jail with her mother after the shooting!

Rita's trial proceeds with many nail-biting moments as the artful but high-strung and haunted Dan Morgan pulls out all the stops -- legal and a few not so legal -- to try to win Rita's freedom. Doug, who has never tried a case before, gets a whale of an education, not only regarding courtroom strategy and tactics but also concerning the position and power jockeying amongst the partners in the firm. Doug "Yes, sir"s and "No, sir"s so often one almost thinks he is toadying. But, no, he is a well-mannered young attorney with a great deal to learn. And learn he does. Actually, Doug, not burdened in 1973 by the regrets and disappointments that weigh on Dan, displays better judgment and insight than his gone-to-seed legal mentor at times.

MISSING WITNESS is a man's book in the sense that it is told entirely from the male perspective, and it projects some biases liable to offend feminists and even non-feminist women. But this story takes place in the early 1970s, so the political correctness to which we are accustomed is rightfully not yet mainstream. Still, if anything underachieves in this superb thriller, it is the alleged motives for the murder that drive the plot; they could come right out of TV's LAW AND ORDER.

But I'm not going to hold any niggling reservations against Campbell. He has written a first-rate, ingenious courtroom drama. The trial's closing arguments in the final pages of the novel are brilliant, as is the twist revealed after their delivery. For aficionados of legal fiction, MISSING WITNESS is about as close to book heaven as one can get.

As I write this review, "Missing Witness" ranks #23 on the Amazon bestseller list in the category of legal thrillers. It deserves to be even higher, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes the genre. More significantly, I would also recommend it to law students and practicing lawyers, even those who have given up on legal fiction of the type put out by John Grisham. "Missing Witness" contains a fascinating application of trial strategy issues. In fact, I used it in a class I teach at George Washington University Law School. My students and I recently discussed how litigators go about proving that something did not happen. This is generally done by calling a witness from some organization that has a reason to record such an event, like a business or a government agency. In other words, to prove that someone accused of a tax crime had not filed a tax return for a particular year, a federal prosecutor will generally call a witness from the IRS to describe how he/she searched the IRS records and did not come up with any hits. This process follows the Federal Rule of Evidence involving records customarily kept in the course of an organization's business. Is it legally correct? It seems to technically conflict with a constitutional rule that criminal defendants have a right to confront their accusers, a point I learned from a veteran trial lawyer I was fortunate enough to work under early in my career, and I have never seen the paradox described in writing. "Missing Witness" has a scene in which this dilemma is depicted in the context of a phone company employee called to establish that a particular call to the police department did not occur. Reading it, it was almost as if Gordon Campbell was that person who taught me, so similar is his treatment of this fine legal point. It is truly rare to find such a good writer among practicing lawyers and "Missing Witness" is more literary than most legal thrillers. It is a cut above. The characters are flawed like real people, rather than super heroes, and of a type more often seen in books by Faulker or Hemmingway than Grisham or Turow. Let's hope that Campbell is just getting warmed up, and that we can expect more books from him in the future.

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