About Me

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Melfort, Saskatchewan, Canada
I am a lawyer in Melfort, Saskatchewan, Canada who enjoys reading, especially mysteries. Since 2000 I have been writing personal book reviews. This blog includes my reviews, information on and interviews with authors and descriptions of mystery bookstores I have visited. I strive to review all Saskatchewan mysteries. Other Canadian mysteries are listed under the Rest of Canada. As a lawyer I am always interested in legal mysteries. I have a separate page for legal mysteries. Occasionally my reviews of legal mysteries comment on the legal reality of the mystery. You can follow the progression of my favourite authors with up to 15 reviews. Each year I select my favourites in "Bill's Best of ----". As well as current reviews I am posting reviews from 2000 to 2011. Below my most recent couple of posts are the posts of Saskatchewan mysteries I have reviewed alphabetically by author. If you only want a sentence or two description of the book and my recommendation when deciding whether to read the book look at the bold portion of the review. If you would like to email me the link to my email is on the profile page.

Sunday, April 20, 2014

The Lawyers of Kill All the Lawyers by William Deverell

In my last post I put up a review of Kill All the Lawyers by William Deverell. The book is so funny and the characters so vivid I have a follow up post.

In the opening four pages Deverell wittily skewers the pretentions of both lawyers and writers of mysteries.

Starting with the lawyers of Vancouver being concerned over the murder of a member of the bar:

For a while, the Bar Association maintained pressure on the authorities to solve this crime. Lawyers don’t get killed. Lawyers were members of a professional elite, safe, sacrosanct, removed from the battle. Police and criminals get killed, not lawyers.

On writers:

Brian examined the typewriter keys, as if seeking coded answers there. No suspects, no motives. One victim. Crushed to death beneath an enormous writer’s block.

The lawyers of Pomeroy, Macarthur, Brovak and Sage are far from the conservative legal stereotype. Flamboyant barely encompasses them.

Brian Pomeroy, while jubilant over the collapse of a Crown case freeing the Kitswuk Five (a group of Indians charged with setting dynamite near a salmon ladder that inadvertently killed two people) is half heartedly trying to end an affair with a luscious bad poet, Charity Slough.

John Brovak snaps in the midst of the Monster, a 6 year long odyssey involving the trafficking in cocaine. The key defendant is 12 fingers Watson (he has two stubby additional digits). It is the fifth month of the current re-trial. In a scene that made me laugh out loud Brovak takes literally a comment from the trial judge that he wanted to see “the goddamn end” of the lawyer. What trial lawyer has not dreamed of some outrageous action to express frustration in the courtroom? A contempt citation ensues and the firm plots his defence wondering whether to get him a “shrink, a lawyer or an exorcist”.

Max Macarthur, to the dismay of his partners, accepts the brief of the Crown to handle the Crown appeal of the Milsom dismissal. They are aghast at his decision as they have always been a defence firm.

Augustina Sage leaves articling student, Wentworth Chance, squirming when she completely disrobes as they share a steam in the office steam sauna.

Within the firm Augustina deals with the civil cases that come their way. Her big case involves a lawsuit by 18 aboriginal former boarding school students against the rector, the Rev. Arnold S. Doyle.

Young Chance finds himself in a situation they do not prepare you for in law school. The firm is defending Minette Lefleur for being “the alleged keeper of a houseboat of prostitution” tied up at Granville Island. Chance is dispatched to the houseboat so their client can show him why she has a very good defence to what would seem a certain conviction. Chance goes weak in the knees at the houseboat when Ms. Lefleur invites him into her bedroom – her “parlour of love” – to show the young man the evidence.

Just keeping up with the characters makes the book fun to read. If you think Deverell had to stretch to create such lawyers read the biography on his website. If anything he underplayed some of the lawyers of his days in the courts of Vancouver.

I have long thought John Grisham was a genius at inventing interesting lawyers. Deverell is his equal. Reading about Pomeroy, Macarthur, Brovak and Sage is never going to be dull.
****
Deverell, William - (2011) - A Trial of Passion; (2011) - Snow Job; (2012) - I'll See You in My Dreams; (2012) - "D" is for William Deverell; (2014) - Kill All the Lawyers

6 comments:

  1. Bill - Oh, what depictions! I respect authors who can skewer members of a profession in a witty way like that. You can tell Deverell has respect for both lawyers and writers, and that's what makes this humour especially effective. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. Margot: Thanks for the comment. Deverell must have been devastating in court. His wit and skill with words would have kept everyone listening.

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  2. So this is a real inside job? No-one is going to do such a good job on lawyers who doesn't know his stuff...

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    1. Moira: Thanks for the comment. Deverell takes readers into the minds of lawyers. Maybe more as we would like to be than are and often exaggerated but always with ring of reality.

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  3. Bill, you just remind me I have this book on my TBR pile. Time to read it soon, I would say. Thanks for your fine review.

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    1. Jose Ignacio: Thank you for the kind words. I hope you read it soon. It is a good murder mystery to read when your spirits need lifting.

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