Without Fear or Favor

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

Gallery Books     2017

384 pages     Legal Thriller

When you read Robert Tanenbaum's resume, you know that before you even start the novel, Without Fear or Favor, you are in the hands of a pro. However, not all legal professionals can write good fiction. This is the 29th book in the Butch Karp-Marlene Ciampi, District Attorney series, and the second one that I have read, the first being Infamy. Tanenbaum is a master of the political and legal thriller. 

Without Fear or Favor starts off with a bang—a political assassination attempt on the life of District Attorney Karp. Black Supremacist, Nat X, is up to some evil work in New York City, inciting riots and recruiting young boys to do his dirty work. A policeman and a young teenager have been killed, and a policeman indicted—not to mention the work of a religious vigilante who lives in the sewers and appears to administer his own form of justice. The city is totally on edge, especially after Karp is shot. Tanenbaum sucks the reader right in with the assassination scene, and the action never lets up until Nat X is captured and the case against him goes to trial.

At this point, the reader can take a breath and stop to savor the case building against Nat X and Karp's brilliance as a prosecutor. The trial, itself, evolves over about a third of the book. The ending scenes are extremely dramatic—as dramatic as the opening, breathtaking scene. In his closing statement, DA Karp's words are brilliant and heart-wrenching, offering an indictment of the current political climate in the United States, most likely the sentiments of the author.

Tanenbaum does not shirk from expressing his politics in his writings. It hits awfully close to home. Much of the plot in Without Fear or Favor hinges on incidents of supposed police brutality—at least in the minds of the African-American protagonists. Tanenbaum creates believable police officers, both effective and ineffective. He also creates Black characters with integrity and compassion to serve as counterpoint to the thugs. I was particularly struck by the two young boys sucked into Nat X's supremacist rhetoric. We certainly saw those same young men (white this time) as we watched with horror the march last Saturday in Charlottesville VA—young men sucked into rhetoric that they don't fully comprehend. 

The reviewer on the Criminal Element website complained that some of the characters are clichés, but having read another book by Tanenbaum, I understand that character development is not his long suit, but you can't beat his no-holds-barred plot development. 

Some thriller series must be read in order, but that is not the case with the Butch Karp-Marlene Ciampi, District Attorney series. Plow right in, unless you are offended by liberal political thrillers or if you are watching too much political drama on the news. 

Robert Tanenbaum's website.

 Robert K. Tanenbaum is the author of thirty-two books—twenty-nine novels and three nonfiction books: Badge of the Assassin, the true account of his investigation and trials of self-proclaimed members of the Black Liberation Army who assassinated two NYPD police officers; The Piano Teacher: The True Story of a Psychotic Killer; and Echoes of My Soul, the true story of a shocking double murder that resulted in the DA exonerating an innocent man while searching for the real killer. The case was cited by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren in the famous Miranda decision. He is one of the most successful prosecuting attorneys, having never lost a felony trial and convicting hundreds of violent criminals. He was a special prosecution consultant on the Hillside strangler case in Los Angeles and defended Amy Grossberg in her sensationalized baby death case. He was Assistant District Attorney in New York County in the office of legendary District Attorney Frank Hogan, where he ran the Homicide Bureau, served as Chief of the Criminal Courts, and was in charge of the DA’s legal staff training program. He served as Deputy Chief counsel for the Congressional Committee investigation into the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He also served two terms as mayor of Beverly Hills and taught Advanced Criminal Procedure for four years at Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, and has conducted continuing legal education (CLE) seminars for practicing lawyers in California, New York, and Pennsylvania. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Tanenbaum attended the University of California at Berkeley on a basketball scholarship, where he earned a B.A. He received his law degree (J.D.) from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley.   Visit RobertKTanenbaumBooks.com. 

Losing Faith

by Adam Mitzner

Gallery Books     2015

357 pages     Fiction

Losing Faith is the story of deceit and its consequences. Aaron Littman is the CEO of a huge New York law firm, eminently respected as a litigator. A Russian mobster and terrorist offers him a $100,000 retainer to represent him in a case coming before Judge Faith Nichols. When Littman rejects the offer, Garkof, the terrorist, threatens to blackmail both him and the judge, because of the brief affair that Littman and Nichols had during the course of a previous trial. Shortly after Judge Nichols refuses bail for Garkof on the first day of the trial, she is murdered in Central Park and Littman is arrested for the murder. That, in a nutshell, is the setup.

Several times during the ensuing court case, Littman protests his innocence to his family and to his coworkers, including Sam Rosenthal, the founder of the law firm and his mentor. Every time he expresses his innocence, he is reminded of the clients who look at him beseechingly, "I didn't do it. You have to believe me."  

Losing Faith is the third legal thriller that I have read by Adam Mitzner. Not only are Mitzner's thrillers fun to read, but the reader also learns a lot about the way courtrooms operate and the way that lawyers think. This time, we are looking at the law from the viewpoint of the accused, a criminal lawyer, and we share his anxieties about the way the case is being presented by his law partner, Rosenthal. Although he knows how to behave in the courtroom and how to answer the questions, Littman suffers from the same apprehension and confusion that any defendant in his situation would feel. "I didn't do it. You have to believe me."

One of the questions that I asked myself as I read the book was "Do I like Littman?" I ask this often in my reading. Recently I stopped reading Hausfrau because I couldn't stand the protagonist. Mitzner says that when creating his protagonists, he wants them to cause the reader to think about their own lives in a new way. 

Of Littman, Mitzner says "I began with a protagonist who had already reached the top — the greatest lawyer of his generation — and I wanted to explore the fleeting nature of such external achievements. Again the opening quote (this one from Coldplay) was what inspired me, as I was fascinated by the idea of a man who 'used to rule the world' and now 'sweeps the streets he used to own.'" What is important about Littman is that he is fully aware of all that he has to lose, and that makes him a readable, albeit not likeable, protagonist.

The reader of Losing Faith spends time thinking about deceit and the reverberations that can be caused by deceit, in business, in the law, and in the family. Littman stumbles when his deceit catches up with him, and he is left unguarded. He hurts the people he most wants to protect, and the decision to deceive colors the rest of his life, and the lives of everyone around him. 

An essay about "likeable" protagonists by Adam Mitzner.

A review of Losing Faith in Mystery Suspense Reviews.

My blog postings about A Conflict of Interest and A Case of Redemption, the other books by Adam Mitzner.

A Case of Redemption

 by Adam Mitzner

Gallery Books    2013

322 pages     Fiction

We expect three things out of a legal thriller--twists, turns, and drama. We expect that the lawyer will be smart and intuitive, and that he will be compassionate and willing to take on the unwinnable case. We expect that the lawyer will be great in the courtroom. We also expect that the lawyer will not be living an ordinary life. Oh, and we also expect some beautiful woman will cause romantic problems for the lawyer. Those are some of the makings of a good legal thriller.

All of these are at play in Adam Mitzner's new novel, A Case of Redemption. Dan Sorenson had just become a partner in a prestigious New York Law firm, when his life is shattered by the death of his wife and young daughter in a car accident. He descends into a stupor of grief and alcohol from which he cannot seem to emerge, so he takes a leave of absence from the firm. He is drawn back to work by a young lawyer named Nina who wants him to defend a rapper named Legally Dead. LD, as he is known, is accused of killing his girlfriend, who is an up-and-coming pop star. The weapon seems to be a baseball bat given to the pop star when she sang the national anthem at a baseball game. 

Nina drags Dan out of his drunken state and they begin to create a defense for a man who from every standpoint appears to be guilty. Slowly Dan finds himself coming back to life. He also finds that his emotional recovery seems to be dependent upon a growing romance with Nina and the innocence of LD. Of course, all is not as it  seems, and the conclusion of A Case of Redemption is especially surprising and catastrophic.

Mitzner does a particularly good job of making us sympathize with Dan's emotional turmoil. The hell he descends into at the death of his family is laden with guilt because he feels that he had devoted himself too much to his work before the car accident and not given his family enough attention. Even the lure of the beautiful Nina doesn't completely assuage him of his grief. I like that Mitzner understands the nature of grief--its ability to come and go--and how often guilt gets mixed up in grief. Dan is a totally believable character; his grief is painful to read about. 

The other well-realized character in the book, Nina, is another story. We think that we know her, but there are parts of her that just don't ring true. I rather liked this element in the plot; it's like your doubts about her give you an inside track to the solution to the puzzle. She does a great job of motivating Dan to come back to his career, but you still have an uneasy feeling about the whole relationship thing. Something's just not right.

Do you have to be a lawyer to write a good legal thriller? I rather think so, because the pacing of the trial is crucial to the plot of a legal thriller. Mitzner is particularly adept at keeping the reader on edge during the trial. His other book, A Conflict of Interest, which came out in 2011, was equally well paced. I expect that we will see more books featuring Dan Sorenson, when he comes back from his self-imposed exile on the beautiful island of St. Martin.

A good review in Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/adam-mitzner/case-of-redemption/

The review in the New York Journal of Books: http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/review/case-redemption

 Another lawyer thriller that you might like would be Defending Jacob by William Landay.

Defending Jacob

By William Landay

New York, Delacorte Press, 2012

421 pages     Fiction

Jacob is 14 when his family’s world falls apart. Any parents or grandparents of 14-year-old boys know that they are totally self-absorbed and enigmatic, and Jacob is all of that and perhaps more. To the astonishment of his parents, he is accused of stabbing and killing a classmate in the park on the way to school one morning. Jacob is so inscrutable that his parents have no idea what he knows, what he feels, or how he is reacting to the arrest and the ensuing trial. 

There is, of course, much more to the set-up than that. Andy, the father, is the narrator of the story and is the Assistant District Attorney who is first assigned to investigate the murder. Andy is a very good narrator. He is insightful, knowledgeable, and all-seeing except, perhaps, when it comes to his son. When Jacob is accused, Andy is taken off the case, and the prosecution is given to a junior—and very ambitious—assistant district attorney. Conflict #1.

Conflict #2 is the secret Andy has been harboring his whole life—his family has a background of murderous men, and his father is in prison for life for murder. His wife, Laurie, has never known this aspect of his life and when she finds out, she becomes increasingly more devastated and conflicted. She begins to doubt the innocence of her son. The psychologist is telling them that Jacob may be damaged, that he has a “heart two sizes too small,” and that he has very little capacity for empathy. This would be something that a mother would know and some aspects of Jacob’s nature become more apparent to Laurie than to Andy. Deep in her heart, she believes that he might be guilty.

Conflict#3.  Andy believes his son is innocent and that a known pedophile may be the guilty party.  The reader never knows whether Andy truly believes in the innocence of his son or if he is playing the lawyer’s role of making the case. The family lawyer says: “The question is, how far will you go for Jacob? What will you do to protect your son?” And I am not sure we readers ever figure that out. Yet, we trust Andy’s instincts, and we become convinced that Jacob could not possibly have committed the crime. Perhaps Jacob lacks empathy, but does that make him a killer?

The plot twists are dizzying and the conclusion is so devastating that I could not go to sleep after I finished reading last night. I had a hard time separating Jacob in the book from my 14-year-old real-life grandson with his baggy pants, gray hoodie over his head, and his non-communicative stare. How would I have felt if this had happened in our family? How far would we go to protect him?

There are many serious issues discussed in the book—the role that social media plays in the lives of teenagers; the nature of genetics; and much more seriously, the very source of evil. Years ago, I read a book by Scott Peck, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil. After I read that book, I spent a long time thinking about the source of evil and its role in human nature. I certainly kept People of the Lie in my mind as I was reading Defending Jacob. The reviewer in the Washington Post asks a similar question: “Is it possible that some people lack free will and are driven toward violence by genetic inheritance?” 

Defending Jacob is #4 on the New York Times best seller list for March 4, 2012. It deserves to be there. I received my copy from the publisher a couple of months ago where it languished until I was reminded of it when it appeared in reviews in national newspapers. This book is for all you lovers of mysteries, legal thrillers, and shattering endings. Author William Landay says that the imprint of Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent “is all over this book.”  If you loved Presumed Innocent, you will love Defending Jacob as well.

Washington Post book review: http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/defending-jacob-by-william-landay/2012/01/30/gIQAC7AVsQ_story.html

William Landay’s website: www.WilliamLanday.com

Audio interview with William Landay: http://blog.blackstoneaudio.com/archives/8653